MP Lee: UNC did not mislead TT on 'fake oil'

THE United National Congress (UNC) has denied that it misled the public when it revealed the so-called "fake oil" scandal.

At a press conference on Sunday. UNC Pointe-a-Pierre MP David Lee said the laying of the 76-page report on the arbitration ruling between Petrotrin and AV Oil Co, in the House of Representatives last Friday, did not put the facts on the public record as promised by the government.

Instead, Lee said, the report raised more questions.

Lee said, “Who was misleading the people of TT? It wasn't the Opposition. Petrotrin by their right, hired an independent company to investigate its internal audit reports on the issue.

“Minister (of Energy Stuart) Young along with the Attorney General, the Prime Minister and the former minister of energy (Franklin Khan) were well aware of the issues being raised in that Petrotrin internal report that led Petrotrin to take action on AV Oil and Gas Drilling. That is their right because they have to protect the interest of the taxpayers."

The arbitration report was laid in Parliament where Young said the court found no evidence of misconduct or anything else to convince it that AV was paid for "fake oil."

Young said, "This hopefully brings to an end the mischief, misinformation and attempts to mislead the people of TT after almost four years.

"The laying of the award/decision of the tribunal in the House today allows the public to read for themselves every line of the findings of the panel of arbitrators; to see, first hand, the detailed manner in which these three judges found what they did."

He said that soon after Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar publicly raised the matter in 2017, by reading a draft, interim internal audit report, Petrotrin abruptly ended its contract with AV Oil to explore and extract oil from the Catshill Field.

However, AV Oil won its case at an arbitration adjudicated by Sir Dennis Byron, Lord David Hope and Humphrey Stollmeyer in a unanimous ruling last June.

Lee described Young’s statements in Parliament on Friday as disingenuous.

Despite the details in the arbitration report and Young’s comments, Lee said Petrotrin’s move to terminate its contract with the oil company was not motivated by the whistleblower in 2017. He said the company had solid and reasonable reasons to support its decision.

“It was not based on political grounds after what was said by the opposition leader (in Parliament in 2017) as stated by Young.

"Arbitration is not a court of law, it is a private dispute resolution. It must be remembered that this matter was also ventilated in the Court of Appeal, where AV Drilling attempted to obtain injunctive relief. "This leaves a lot of questions when you read the arbitration report,” Lee said.