TPHL'S LEGAL TEAM PROBING 'FAKE' WIRE TRANSFER

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Trinidad Petroleum Holdings Ltd says it has referred to its legal advisors and the relevant authorities for advice, what the Energy Minister says is a fake wire transfer regarding Patriotic Energy's bid to restart the refinery.  The State-owned oil company says that legal advice is also meant to find out "whether any offence has been committed, and thereafter, to take whatever further action may be warranted."  Meanwhile, Patriotic Energy says it is seeking its own legal advice.  This, as the matter was again raised during the Budget debate in the House of Representatives.  Juhel Browne reports.

Transcript

00:00Three days after Energy Minister Stuart Young told the Parliament the reason the

00:04oilfields workers trade union owned Patriotic's second bid to restart the

00:09state-owned oil refinery in Pointe-a-Pierre failed was due to what he

00:13identified as a fake banking document Trinidad Petroleum Holdings Limited

00:17TPHL issued a statement to the media. TPHL replaced Petrotrin as the

00:23state-owned oil company in late 2018 and has four subsidiaries including the

00:29company responsible for selecting a preferred bidder for the sale or lease

00:33of the refinery. TPHL said on Tuesday that it is in receipt of a document

00:39submitted by Patriotic Energy Services Company Limited in furtherance of its

00:43non-binding offer for the Guaracara refinery. TPHL said the document was

00:49specifically identified as evidence of a wire transfer of 1.5 billion United

00:55States dollars into a local bank with Patriotic Energies and Technology

01:00Company Limited as the beneficiary. TPHL further said information to hand

01:06suggests that there was no such transfer and that accordingly the said document

01:12has been referred to the company's legal advisors and the relevant authorities

01:16for advice including whether any offense has been committed and thereafter to

01:22take whatever further action may be warranted. Patriotic Energy issued a

01:27statement in response to TPHL. Patriotic said it is receiving legal advice and is

01:33exploring all its legal options. In the House of Representatives on Tuesday

01:38Oropuch East MP Dr. Rudal Munilal read TPHL's statement into the

01:43Parliament's records during his contribution to the budget debate. He

01:47made reference to the Evaluation Committee. We thank them for their

01:51service but I'm not seeing anywhere there Trinidad Petroleum holding. In

01:55fact I'm not even seeing the minister's name here as part of the Evaluation

01:59Committee. How did the minister got wind of a wire transfer involving an

02:05impartial and independent Evaluation Committee? MP Munilal called on the

02:10Energy Minister to provide an answer. Did you enter the room of the Evaluation

02:14Committee? By accident you were in Whitehall and you entered the wrong room

02:20and they were looking at documents that Patriotic submitted? How did this happen?

02:26And how did Trinidad Holdings Limited get a copy of these documents?

02:32Confidential documents meant for Scotia International and meant for the

02:37Evaluation Committee? How it works Madam Speaker is when you send your documents

02:41to the Evaluation Committee if they believe that something is amiss and so

02:45on they have a duty to take it up with the authorities. To take it with the

02:52authorities. Politicians don't get involved in that. Later in the debate

02:56National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hines responded directly to Dr. Munilal.

03:02Madam Speaker the member for Oropooch East commented on and wondering how I

03:09mean Trinidad Petroleum Holdings Limited would have had knowledge of the

03:17evaluation. It is their asset. When we restructure Petrochain that holding

03:24company holds the assets and liabilities as new companies were set up to carry on

03:30profitably. They are entitled to those documents and they have it so he could

03:35waste his time if it pleases him. Patriotic Energy said it carefully

03:39observed that quote TPHL in their statement has purposely and conveniently

03:44not stated the date they claimed the document was submitted unquote. Patriotic

03:50said the line minister of TPHL has the ultimate responsibility for ensuring

03:54that the said non-binding bid process remains independent and insulated from

03:59any political bias ministerial overreach and or interference. Patriotic said that

04:04in the interest of fairness transparency and equality and treatment

04:08to all it again calls for the total scrapping and redoing of what it calls

04:13the compromised non-binding bid process. Jewel Brown TV6 News

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