Roget: Every single citizen will benefit

Pres­i­dent Gen­er­al of the Oil­field Work­ers’ Trade Union An­cel Ro­get has giv­en the as­sur­ance that their ac­qui­si­tion of the for­mer Petrotrin re­fin­ery will ben­e­fit every sin­gle cit­i­zen in T&T.
Re­ceiv­ing the news of their suc­cess dur­ing a walk­a­bout in Point Fortin in sup­port of two Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice (MSJ) lo­cal gov­ern­ment can­di­dates yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, Ro­get and union mem­bers broke out in cel­e­bra­tion, chant­i­ng to union songs. Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert an­nounced in Par­lia­ment that OW­TU-owned Pa­trot­ic En­er­gies and Tech­nolo­gies Ser­vices Ltd, won the bid for the re­fin­ery with an of­fer of US$700 mil­lion. Some 70 bids were ini­tial­ly made for the re­fin­ery’s ac­qui­si­tion.  It is the first time in the his­to­ry of T&T that a union has tak­en con­trol of a state en­ter­prise, one that was once con­sid­ered a ma­jor rev­enue earn­er. Speak­ing with the me­dia at New­lands, Ma­haica, short­ly af­ter re­ceiv­ing the news, Ro­get said, “While every­body was prepar­ing for the cel­e­bra­tion of Christ­mas last year, on De­cem­ber 17 the OW­TU would have been busy with the process of in­cor­po­rat­ing a com­pa­ny for the ac­qui­si­tion of the re­fin­ery and that com­pa­ny is the Pa­tri­ot­ic En­er­gy and Tech­nolo­gies Ser­vices Ltd.”
He said this was some­thing the union and the peo­ple de­served. “I al­so want to say that the ac­qui­si­tion of the re­fin­ery for the OW­TU on our part is not just for the Petrotrin work­ers, it’s for the Petrotrin work­ers that is a fact. It is not just for the OW­TU mem­bers, it is for the OW­TU mem­bers that is al­so a fact, but it is for and be­half all of the peo­ple of T&T. We did this on the fo­cus of the coun­try, know­ing full well that if that re­fin­ery had got­ten in­to any oth­er hands it would not have ben­e­fit­ed T&T. We would have strug­gled, we would have prayed, we would have fast­ed and at the end of the day the Almighty God would have show­ered bless­ings on us not just us but on the peo­ple of T&T,” he said.
He added: “The peo­ple T&T cer­tain­ly de­serve a lot more and we are go­ing to en­sure that our ac­qui­si­tion of those as­sets do not go in vain. It will go for every sin­gle cit­i­zen that walks this land.”
Thank­ing all well wish­ers and mem­bers who sup­port­ed the union in every step of the jour­ney, he said, “The ac­qui­si­tion of those as­sets is not a gift from the Gov­ern­ment. We did not get any gratis or no­body did us any favour. We de­serve it, the peo­ple de­serve it.”
Ro­get sug­gest­ed that not all the work­ers who were fired will be re­hired. “All of the work­ers who were in sup­port of the union for the ac­qui­si­tion of those as­sets, those work­ers will not be dis­ap­point­ed,” he said.
Ro­get said their first or­der of busi­ness will be a na­tion­al prayer ser­vice to give thanks to God. The com­pa­ny, he said, will al­so have to re­ceive its for­mal doc­u­ment from the Gov­ern­ment stat­ing that they had ac­quired the re­fin­ery.
“Once that oc­curs we will be able to take it from there,” he said.
In due time, he said the board mem­bers of Pa­tri­ot­ic En­er­gy and Tech­nolo­gies Ser­vices Ltd will be dis­closed.
Last year Ro­get, in an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, in­di­cat­ed that a for­eign in­vestor was in­ter­est­ed in part­ner­ing with OW­TU in a joint ven­ture lease of the re­fin­ery.
The Gov­ern­ment claimed the state oil com­pa­ny was los­ing mon­ey and Petrotrin was shut down on No­vem­ber 30. Thou­sands of work­ers were ter­mi­nat­ed.
The as­sets were di­vid­ed in­to four com­pa­nies, Trinidad Pe­tro­le­um Hold­ings Ltd, Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny, Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny and Guaracara Re­fin­ery Ltd.
Source: Guardian, Sept. 24, 2019.

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