Petrotrin sale just anotherpappyshow

THE EDITOR: Ah yes, here we go again. Prime Minister Rowley has now promised that negotiations for the sale of the Petrotrin refinery will be completed by the end of the month. How convenient! Just months before a general election, and after years of silence, the PNM suddenly remembers that it shut down one of our country’s most valuable assets.

If this sounds familiar, that’s because it is. Back in 2019, in the lead-up to the 2020 election, we got the grand announcement that the Cabinet had agreed to select Patriotic Energies and Technologies Co Ltd – a company owned by the Oilfields Workers Trade Union (OWTU) – as the preferred bidder for the refinery. Finance Minister Colm Imbert himself made the big declaration in Parliament.

Of course, as soon as the election was over and the PNM secured another term, the very same Imbert came back with a different story. Patriotic’s proposal was suddenly not good enough, and the refinery remained in limbo, abandoned, left to rot.

Now, with another election looming, the PNM is dusting off its old bag of tricks to try and fool the electorate once more.

If by some perversity and insanity the PNM were to win this upcoming election, we will see the usual excuses, the backtracking, the finger-pointing, and the inevitable cancellation of this so-called deal. It’s a pattern as predictable as the PNM’s reliance on divisive race talk whenever it finds itself backed into a corner.

I sincerely hope that the people of this country – and the media – will not fall for this charade again. We have endured ten years of absolute decline under this government: crime is out of control, the economy is in free fall, the energy sector is in tatters, education is suffering, infrastructure is crumbling, and healthcare is a disaster.

It can't do anything now that it could not have done in the past ten years. There is nothing new to come from the PNM. Only more destruction.

TT has no future under the PNM. We cannot allow ourselves to be deceived by its empty promises yet again. This election must be the moment we break free from this endless cycle of betrayal.

DARREN GARNER

via e-mail