UNC SAYS THAT'S BETWEEN PATRIOTIC CO. & GOV'T

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An Opposition MP is claming that pensioners of the company that once ran the State-owned oil refinery in Point-a-Pierre received their pensions late last month.   But where the ongoing war of words between the Patriotic company and the Energy Minister over the company's second failed attempt to restart the oil refinery is concerned......the Opposition MP  has distanced the U-N-C from that matter.    Juhel Browne reports.

Transcript

00:00During the opposition UNC's media conference on Sunday, Point of Peer MP David Lee had

00:06a lot to say about one of the legacy aspects of Petrotrin, the state-owned oil company

00:11which the government restructured into Trinidad Petroleum Holdings Limited some six years

00:17ago.

00:18What is happening with the pension fund of the retirees of Petrotrin, those retirees?

00:26I understand September, a few days last week, that for the first time their pension payments

00:36they received it late, for the first time and a lot of them got scared.

00:41A lot of them got worried because never before that their pension payments were ever late.

00:49One of the UNC's campaign promises has been that it will reopen the state-owned oil refinery

00:54in Point of Peer, which was closed in late 2018.

00:58In response to a question posed during the opposition's media conference, MP Lee also

01:04had a lot to say when he distanced the UNC from the oilfields workers' trade union-owned

01:11patriotic company's second unsuccessful bid to restart the refinery under the present

01:17PNM administration.

01:20That is a matter between patriotic technologies and the evaluation committee and even Minister

01:26Young, who seems to have gotten that information in his mailbox that he said in his contribution

01:33on Friday.

01:35So I will leave it there.

01:36We have nothing to do with that deal.

01:39We don't know anything about that deal.

01:42Energy Minister Stuart Young said on Saturday that due diligence confirmed what he said

01:46in Parliament on Friday, that patriotic produced a fake document purporting to be a wire transfer

01:52to a local bank of U.S. $1.5 billion.

01:58Patriotic said that they remain confident that their preferred financier can stand the

02:02scrutiny of any due diligence process.

02:05We don't know anything about that deal or any of the bids that was put in by any of

02:12the companies that would have sought to try and buy the refinery.

02:16So we leave it between patriotic and the government to sort that out.

02:21Earlier in the media conference, MP Lee spoke about the government's approach to dealing

02:25with the shortfall in the supply of natural gas, as he referred it to a statement made

02:30by Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley on September 27.

02:34Dr. Rowley spoke about progress with the deals from the supply of natural gas from Venezuela.

02:40However, the Prime Minister urged the population to hold the fort as he expressed confidence

02:45the nation will be in a better position in 2027.

02:50When the opposition used to be telling them, do not put all your eggs in that cross-border

02:56arrangement that you are trying to work out with Venezuela.

02:59That is fine, but do not put, while you're doing that, ensure that your home in our waters

03:05are well oiled, no pun intended, and the drilling continues to find oil and gas.

03:12The reports are there that we have it in our territorial waters.

03:17The government has insisted it has not put all of its eggs in the cross-border gas basket

03:23and has been working on encouraging the upstream companies,

03:26such as BP and Shell, to increase local natural gas production.

03:31Jule Brown, TV6 News.

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