Last week, un­der the head­line “Are the pro­cure­ment amend­ments a li­cence for cor­rup­tion?”, this col­umn touched on pro­posed changes to the Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Dis­pos­al of Pub­lic Prop­er­ty Act, which the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion suc­cess­ful­ly se­cured ap­proval for in both Hous­es of Par­lia­ment. The ap­proval by the Sen­ate has be­come con­tro­ver­sial, of course, be­cause Sen­ate Pres­i­dent, Wade Mark, used his cast­ing vote to ap­prove the leg­is­la­tion af­ter the 15 Op­po­si­tion and In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors vot­ed against it.

In my view, the amend­ments to the pro­cure­ment law are against the na­tion­al in­ter­est be­cause it ex­pands the ex­emp­tions from the Act of crit­i­cal as­pects of the econ­o­my, com­pris­ing “the en­er­gy sec­tor, na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ships for pub­lic hous­ing, pub­lic util­i­ties, the ac­qui­si­tion of goods, ser­vices or works in con­se­quence of an emer­gency” and such oth­er pro­cure­ment as the Min­is­ter may, by Or­der, de­ter­mine.

Last week’s com­men­tary ad­dressed is­sues re­lat­ed to the im­pact of the re­moval of the pro­cure­ment guardrails on pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ships for pub­lic hous­ing. Just to add to that, sev­er­al Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters have made the point that the award by the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion in April of con­tracts worth $3.4 bil­lion to com­pa­nies does not in­volve “one cent of Gov­ern­ment mon­ey.” That is de­bat­able, giv­en the fact that the Gov­ern­ment is like­ly to foot the bill for the ac­cess in­fra­struc­ture to the hous­ing de­vel­op­ments, such as roads, wa­ter, elec­tric­i­ty and telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions. Al­so, it was pro­posed that the 3,700 hous­ing units be built on State lands with val­ue.

But, this week’s col­umn deals with an equal­ly con­se­quen­tial ex­emp­tion, re­sult­ing from last week’s amend­ments—the fact that if/when the Pres­i­dent as­sents to the amend­ments, the sale or lease of the Guaracara re­fin­ery will not be gov­erned by the purview of the Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tion (OPR).

Since it was shut down in No­vem­ber 2018, the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion at­tempt­ed on three oc­ca­sions to sell or lease the moth­balled re­fin­ery, which is lo­cat­ed in Pointe-a-Pierre. The re­fin­ery-dis­pos­al bid­ding process­es fol­lowed the de­ci­sion by the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment to re­struc­ture its whol­ly owned oil as­sets.

Kam­la’s call for ac­tion

The cur­rent Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress ad­min­is­tra­tion made the re­open­ing of the re­fin­ery a cam­paign promise. On De­cem­ber 5, 2025, the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter (OPM) is­sued a state­ment in which it com­ment­ed on its re­ceipt of the In­ter­im Re­port of the Re­fin­ery Restart Com­mit­tee, which was chaired by for­mer Min­is­ter of En­er­gy Mr. Kevin Ram­nar­ine.

The Ram­nar­ine Com­mit­tee re­port not­ed that de­spite its clo­sure at the end of No­vem­ber 2018, “the restart of the re­fin­ery is tech­ni­cal­ly, com­mer­cial­ly and fi­nan­cial­ly vi­able giv­en the cur­rent mar­ket de­mands for re­fined prod­ucts and crude avail­abil­i­ty.”

The re­port al­so not­ed that the clo­sure of the re­fin­ery had led to degra­da­tion of the units and sup­port­ing util­i­ties and off­sites, adding that, as a re­sult, “time was of the essence as fur­ther de­te­ri­o­ra­tion of the units and sup­port­ing util­i­ties would even­tu­al­ly ren­der a restart un­eco­nom­ic.”

The OPM state­ment out­lined, “The Prime Min­is­ter has di­rect­ed the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries (which is led by Dr Roodal Mooni­lal) to un­der­take a re­view of the in­ter­im re­port and pro­pose pos­si­ble op­tions and mod­els to adopt, giv­en the con­clu­sions of the com­mit­tee. The Guaracara re­fin­ery re­mains a sig­nif­i­cant na­tion­al as­set with strong eco­nom­ic, em­ploy­ment, and en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty po­ten­tial. A Fi­nal Fea­si­bil­i­ty and Restart Rec­om­men­da­tion for Op­tions is ex­pect­ed to be sub­mit­ted to the Cab­i­net very ear­ly in 2026.”

I am sub­ject to cor­rec­tion, but I do not re­call Dr Mooni­lal ever speak­ing about his Min­istry’s re­view of the in­ter­im re­port on the re­fin­ery, and I am fair­ly cer­tain that he has not tabled the fi­nal fea­si­bil­i­ty and restart re­port in Par­lia­ment. He may, though, have sub­mit­ted the fi­nal re­port to Cab­i­net “very ear­ly in 2026,” as Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ex­pect­ed him to do in the De­cem­ber 5 state­ment.

Rather than out­lin­ing the process that the Gov­ern­ment has cho­sen to utilise to sell or lease the re­fin­ery, Dr Mooni­lal spent a sig­nif­i­cant per­cent­age of his speak­ing time in the amend­ment de­bate in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives last week Wednes­day blam­ing the OPR’s reg­u­la­tions for ham­per­ing, hin­der­ing and im­pair­ing at­tempts to sell or lease the re­fin­ery.

Dr Mooni­lal’s com­ments

Mooni­lal said the amend­ments to the Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Dis­pos­al of Pub­lic Prop­er­ty Act were tabled in the in­ter­est of restart­ing the oil re­fin­ery in Pointe-a-Pierre and to en­sure the small man can par­tic­i­pate.

“I be­gin by telling you that we have been pre­oc­cu­pied 24 hours a day with this mat­ter of the re­fin­ery restart. The biggest is­sue that con­strains us and makes us move in a very slow man­ner is the OPR.

“We could have restart­ed the re­fin­ery al­ready. Five thou­sand peo­ple could have had jobs now while I’m speak­ing. But every time we move, you know this OPR is akin—and I am hap­py to con­tin­ue the anal­o­gy of crick­et, Mr. Speak­er, to which I know you have a pas­sion—this OPR is re­al­ly an ad­min­is­tra­tive Duck­worth-Lewis sys­tem.

“This is every time you make a move, they say check against the sci­en­tif­ic for­mu­la. We make a move on the re­fin­ery. Hold on, there’s an OPR reg­u­la­tion. We make a move again on the re­fin­ery to do some­thing. Hold on, we can’t go there.

“Every day I ask a com­mit­tee, what is the up­date on this re­fin­ery? My prime min­is­ter is ask­ing me, Min­is­ter of En­er­gy, what is hap­pen­ing? When are we restart­ing the re­fin­ery? I said, Prime Min­is­ter, lis­ten, I would like to restart that re­fin­ery tonight and flare up, but there is an OPR process, and they tell me that they have to sat­is­fy this reg­u­la­tion, that reg­u­la­tion. They have to do this. They have to do that. They have to is­sue this; they have to is­sue that. They have to look at the reg­istry here, the reg­istry there. And I say, but when will we restart the re­fin­ery? When every­thing is cor­rod­ed, every­thing rusty? When are you go­ing to restart the re­fin­ery? When you plug it on and it blows up Mara­bel­la?

“They did that, Mr Speak­er, and the re­fin­ery restart is be­ing ham­pered, hin­dered, and im­paired by some of these reg­u­la­tions, which to­day we have said as a gov­ern­ment we will have no part of. Enough is enough.”

Ques­tions

* Has the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion is­sued a new Re­quest for Pro­pos­als (RFP) for the sale or lease of the re­fin­ery?

On Sep­tem­ber 20, 2019, for­mer min­is­ter of fi­nance, Colm Im­bert, gave a com­pre­hen­sive pre­sen­ta­tion on the re­sults of the RFP for the sale of the Pointe-a-Pierre Re­fin­ery.

Mr Im­bert dis­closed that the at­tract­ed 77 ex­pres­sions of in­ter­est (EOI). Of 77 bid­ders, 25 elect­ed to sign Non-Dis­clo­sure Agree­ments (NDAs), which then al­lowed ac­cess to a vir­tu­al da­ta room con­tain­ing high­ly con­fi­den­tial in­for­ma­tion on the as­sets and on the over­all process.

Of the 25 po­ten­tial bid­ders who signed the NDAs, eight pro­ceed­ed to sub­mit Non-Bind­ing Of­fers (NBOs).

A short list of five bid­ders was cre­at­ed, based on cer­tain cri­te­ria set out by the Gov­ern­ment and the bids were eval­u­at­ed, fol­low­ing which three bid­ders sub­mit­ted com­pli­ant bind­ing of­fers.

The bid by Pa­tri­ot­ic En­er­gies and Tech­nolo­gies Com­pa­ny, the com­pa­ny owned by the Oil­fields Work­ers Trade Union, was found to be the best bid, but the com­pa­ny clear­ly could not put to­geth­er the fi­nan­cial re­sources.

In my view, the PROCESS used by Mr Im­bert to choose a buy­er or lessor for the re­fin­ery was fair and trans­par­ent.

* Does Dr Mooni­lal be­lieve that an EOI is the same as an RFP?

The main ad­van­tage of the RFP is that all of the bid­ders are in­formed of the pre­req­ui­sites of the process. And in or­der to ad­vance in the process, the bid­ders have to pay to ac­cess the vir­tu­al da­ta room;

* Is the OPR wrong to in­sist that the dis­pos­al of an as­set as sig­nif­i­cant as the re­fin­ery should fol­low a de­fined, trans­par­ent, com­pet­i­tive and ac­count­able PROCESS;

* If Dr Mooni­lal had start­ed with the right PROCESS in De­cem­ber 2025, would the Gov­ern­ment be in a po­si­tion nine months lat­er to an­nounce a suc­cess­ful bid­der?