As the Movement for Social Justice gets ready to announce its first group of candidates for local government elections, political leader David Abdulah says the changes in the Petrotrin Board and the removal of Wilfred Espinet will not make a difference to the chaos left after the closure of Petrotrin. Speaking at a press conference held yesterday, Abdulah said the MSJ was not sorry to see Wilfred Espinet booted out. Espinet had supervised the shutting down of Petrotrin and its transition to independent business units—Heritage Petroleum Company, Paria Fuel Trading Company, Guaracara Refining Company and Trinidad Petroleum Holdings Limited (TPHL).
However, Abdulah said the appointments of Newman George as chairman of Guaracara and Paria and, Michael Quamina as chairman of Heritage and TPHL, will not make a difference.
“We have no sympathy for Espinet, he was exposed at the Industrial court. Alternately we know it was Keith Rowley’s decision to close it down so not only him was culpable,” he said. Abdulah said the thousands of people are still suffering because of the closure of Petrotrin.
“The public still do not understand the negative effect of the closure. Today the communities where Petrotrin existed are in a depressed state. Ex-workers are going through serious depression. Many ex-Petrotrin workers are not employed. Schools are to be reopened people have not yet organised the requirements for school,” he said.
He said the small businesses which fed off the operations of Petrotrin have been wiped out.
“People are closing down their businesses. People are suffering and they have actually lost their money going into businesses and it is about time the national community understands what is taking place,” he said.
He said that Quamina and George were close friends of Rowley and this would create problems similar to what occurred when Patrick Manning put Malcom Jones as executive chairman of Petrotrin. Jones and Manning were reportedly good friends.
He also said Rowley’s creation of a new society was against the ideals of the PNM that Dr Eric Wiliams created.
“In that society that Williams created, people took responsibility for their own affairs. That independent society is now being completely shattered by Rowley. He is destroying the foundations upon which the PNM was established. This new society offers no hope to the young people. No hope for university graduates. It provides no hope for the youths who are being failed by our education system,” Abdulah said.
He also said that he was in support of a fish trading agreement between Tobago and Barbados as well as the charting of missions between T&T and Barbados.
“There was a fishing agreement many years ago which lapses when the PNM was in government. There ought to be a re-establishment of a fishing agreement to protect the fisherfolk of Barbados, Tobago and Trinidad to protect our marine resources which is the Caribbean sea,” Abdulah said. He noted that the idea of shared missions was part of the ideas promulgated under the Caricom Single Market and Economy (CSME).