Roget: Govt misled us on refinery bid

HOURS after government announced its rejection of the offer by Patriotic Energies and Technologies Ltd for the purchase of the Pointe-a-Pierre refinery, the company’s chairman Ancel Roget said the Oilfield Workers Trade Union (OWTU) was misled.

However, Roget who is the president general of the OWTU – parent company of Patriotic – said he remains committed and called on the Prime Minister to intervene, remove the mortgage on the assets and complete the process so the country can benefit.

“We were derailed by the government’s offer,” Roget said referring to an assurance by Finance Minister Colm Imbert that there was no mortgage on the refinery, and if there was it could have been put on other assets.

Roget said on Tuesday that the lien is the central issue in the acquisition process as bond holders are not prepared to let go of the assets in the arrangement the government has offered Patriotic.

He was speaking at a news conference at the union’s Paramount Building headquarters in San Fernando to respond to the announcement by Imbert and Energy Minister Franklin Khan that Patriotic no longer enjoyed exclusivity to the sale of the refinery.

“The Minister of Finance on September 25, 2019 would have derailed Patriotic because Patriotic came to the table with an upfront US$700 million to purchase these assets.”

“The government said, ‘No, we have a better offer – ten years to pay and three years to start paying and some ten things to work out.’ We did all of that, but when the rubber hit the road, when we were supposed to get this thing operational, the bond holders who were perhaps not a part of government’s offer, said no that cannot happen.

“That wasn’t our fault, TT. We have the money to restart it (refinery). We accepted their (government’s) offer in good faith, but it was not true. It was not wholesome. It could not stand.”

After spending “plenty English pounds and US green backs” to expedite the acquisition process to engage lawyers, consortiums, incorporate a company and do market research, he said he would hate to think that as late as November 11, when Imbert said they were not selling anything with a mortgage or lien on it, he would have misled them.

“We were misled and the Cabinet must take responsibility and have in its deep consideration, the fact that you misled us and now shut the door on us.”

He said it was unfair for the government to turn around and give the impression that the union could not raise the money when it was the only patriot that saw the benefits of investing tens of millions of their hard-earned capital.

“For the ministers to just smile and dismiss that, we think is a grave and great injustice to the people of TT.”

Roget appealed to Dr Rowley to bring justice to the issue notwithstanding Cabinet’s decision. He called on the PM to meet with all of the major players to examine the veracity of their proposals, but more importantly the commitment of Credit Suisse, a leading financial services company, to close the deal.

“We today reaffirm our commitment to the restart of the refinery. We reaffirm our request to meet with the minister and his team to interrogate Credit Suisse’s commitment to stand with us.

“Our business partners are still with us at the table. The suppliers of crude to make sure we have a feed stock for the refinery, are still at the table. The markets for the products are still with us.”