GOVT BACKS DOWN

FORMER United National Congress (UNC) senator Wayne Sturge has withdrawn his injunction application which sought to temporarily block the pending sale of the Pointe-a-Pierre refinery – now called Guaracara Refining Co Ltd – and which drew the ire of the Oilfield Workers Trade Union (OWTU) the preferred bidder for the state asset.

Had the injunction been granted, it would have potentially stalled the sale for months until the attorney's constitutional claim was determined by the courts.

Sturge's decision to withdraw his application came after attorneys for Minister of Finance Colm Imbert indicated that the Joint Select Committee (JSC) on Energy would convene next Wednesday.

Sturge was also seeking an injunction to compel the minister, who is also the chairman of the committee, to hold a meeting.

Sturge complained that the committee did not meet for almost 20 months and had as “the singular subject of consideration” when it last met on February 21, 2018, the restructuring of Petrotrin.

When the injunction applications came up for hearing before Justice Ronnie Boodoosingh in the Port of Spain High Court yesterday, Martin Daly, SC, who leads a team of attorneys for the finance minister, told the judge the committee would meet next Wednesday.

Sturge’s attorney, Gerald Ramdeen, said the decision to convene the committee meant that the injunctions would be unnecessary since his client’s applications intended to ask the court for directions or the purpose of upholding the Constitution and rule of law and holding the Government, the Executive and the Cabinet accountable to the Parliament for decisions made with respect to the sale of the refinery.

However, he said the former senator still wanted to pursue the question of whether Imbert, as chairman of the committee, acted unlawfully by not convening a meeting for some 20 months.

Boodoosingh adjourned the matter to November 12 so that parties could decide on how they planned to proceed with the case since Daly suggested that the court could consider as a preliminary issue, whether it had jurisdiction to pronounce of Parliamentary procedures.

The Parliament’s lead counsel, Deborah Peake, agreed with the court hearing the preliminary issue. She also said her client was expecting a ruling on the same issue which might assist.

On November 1, a judge is expected to rule on Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Moonial’s challenge of the composition of the Privileges Committee of Parliament which investigated a contempt allegation against him.

Peake submitted that in Sturge’s case, her client was willing to produce evidence that there were other avenues available to the former senator to get accountability in Parliament.

On September 20, Imbert announced the sale of the former Petrotrin refinery operations to Patriotic Energies and Technologies Co Ltd, which is wholly owned by the OWTU.

The minister said from the results for the request for proposals for the sale of the refinery, Patriotic was the only bidder that offered an upfront consideration of US$700 million.

Sturge, in his constitutional motion, filed by attorneys Gerald Ramdeen, Umesh Maharaj and Dayadai Harripaul, sought declarations that the failure by the JSC chairman to hold a meeting of the committee for the last 19 months was unlawful.

According to his claim, the attorney said he considered it his responsibility to uphold the law and do all he could to prevent the undermining of the rule of law in the public interest.

“Before the Joint Select Committee of Parliament was given an opportunity to complete its task, the Board of directors of Petrotrin, who were before the committee at the time, took a decision to close the refinery operations of Petrotrin.

“This was a decision that was subsequently accepted by the Cabinet and the Government. This decision had the effect of placing on the breadline in excess of 5,000 workers directly and in excess of 4,000 indirectly.

According to Sturge, the decisions of the Government and the Cabinet were taken “in an atmosphere of secrecy and mystery” and the decision to not convene a meeting of the JSC on Energy for the past 20 months, was “deliberate and intentional” on Imbert’s part, especially since as Finance Minister he would have been “intimately involved” in the decisions taken on the refinery.

“The decision was designed to ensure that the committee would be unable to discharge its functions during this most critical time in the history of the energy sector of our country when irreversible decisions were being made by the government with respect to the patrimony of our country,” he said.

“Had the Joint Select Committee on Energy been allowed to discharge its constitutional function the decisions of the chairman and the Cabinet to which he belongs would have been the subject of examination by the committee.

“The population is forced to accept the information that the Government, the Cabinet, and the Executive have placed in the public domain justifying these decisions,” Sturge said.

“While there has been no shortage of public statements by the minister, the said minister by his inactions has deprived the Parliament of the ability to scrutinise those statements and hold the government, the Executive and the Cabinet accountable for the decisions that have been taken,” he added.

Patriotic Energies and Technologies, led by Senior Counsel Douglas Mendes, did not make submissions since the injunction applications were withdrawn.

After Sturge’s application had been filed, the OWTU’s lead Ancel Roget said if the injunction was successful it would have affected workers and fenceline communities from benefitting from an initial injection of $2.5 billion to restart the refinery. He promised that the union would expose the plot” by the Opposition UNC for wanting to stop the proposed sale.

Meanwhile, Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar questioned the proposed sale to Patriotic Energies and promised to reopen the refinery.

Senior Counsel Fyard Hosein and Amrita Ramsook are representing the Attorney General, while Jason Mootoo also appears for the Finance Minister while Ravi Heffes-Doon appears with Peake for the Parliament.