KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

For­mer Petrotrin work­ers were buoyed yes­ter­day by news that the Gov­ern­ment in­tends to ho­n­our pre­vi­ous agree­ments to al­lo­cate them land and re­open their med­ical cen­tres, as the Re­fin­ery Re­view Com­mit­tee pre­pares to de­liv­er its re­port on the Pointe-a-Pierre Re­fin­ery restart this week.

Scores of for­mer ca­su­al, tem­po­rary, and per­ma­nent work­ers gath­ered at Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny’s car park as the Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) marked the sev­enth an­niver­sary of the re­fin­ery’s clo­sure and the mass dis­missal of all Petrotrin em­ploy­ees. The con­tro­ver­sial re­struc­tur­ing by the pre­vi­ous Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment ad­min­is­tra­tion had end­ed T&T’s re­fin­ing op­er­a­tions. But as Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries Ernesto Ke­sar ad­dressed the largest union gath­er­ing in years, op­ti­mism re­turned.

Ke­sar, a for­mer OW­TU branch pres­i­dent, said that al­though 2,814 for­mer work­ers had ap­plied to the Land Set­tle­ment Agency for parcels owed un­der their sep­a­ra­tion agree­ments, on­ly 238 had re­ceived let­ters of com­mit­ment, and none had yet re­ceived land. Fol­low­ing re­cent meet­ings in­volv­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, and OW­TU Pres­i­dent Gen­er­al An­cel Ro­get, Ke­sar was in­struct­ed to pre­pare a com­pre­hen­sive re­port on all for­mer work­ers for Cab­i­net ap­proval.

“It will take in­to con­sid­er­a­tion where the land is lo­cat­ed, the ca­pac­i­ty, and all of the dif­fer­ent fa­cil­i­ties, but I have been giv­en that re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to pre­pare that re­port,” he said.

On health­care, Ke­sar said the Gov­ern­ment hopes to re­open two de­funct med­ical fa­cil­i­ties for for­mer work­ers and their fam­i­lies with­in six months. Mooni­lal tasked him with in­spect­ing the clin­ics un­der Trinidad Pe­tro­le­um Hold­ings Ltd and iden­ti­fy­ing “quick wins.” Af­ter vis­its to the Guaracara and San­ta Flo­ra clin­ics, Ke­sar found that the Pointe-a-Pierre cen­tre re­mained struc­tural­ly sound and re­tained med­ical records for all work­ers. How­ev­er, the San­ta Flo­ra fa­cil­i­ty had been van­dalised.

“San­ta Flo­ra wasn’t as sound as Guaracara. The place was van­dalised. Doors and win­dows were re­moved. The cen­tre is struc­tural­ly strong, but there is a lot of work to do,” he said.

Re­gard­ing the re­fin­ery it­self, Ke­sar stressed that the OW­TU re­mains a key part­ner in the restart process.

“Can you imag­ine there are per­sons in this coun­try who do not want this re­fin­ery to be open?” he asked.

As the union con­tin­ues to as­sert its claim over Petrotrin’s suc­ces­sor com­pa­nies, Ke­sar said Labour Min­is­ter Leroy Bap­tiste has been in­struct­ed to bring a mo­tion to Par­lia­ment sup­port­ing the OW­TU’s claim to suc­ces­sor­ship.

Ro­get de­scribed the re­fin­ery’s clo­sure as the worst eco­nom­ic de­ci­sion in the na­tion’s his­to­ry and said it was de­signed to weak­en the OW­TU. He al­so re­vealed that he had served for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley with a le­gal no­tice and state­ment of claim for dam­ages, al­leg­ing defama­tion in Au­gust 2022. The claim re­lates to a so­cial me­dia post where Row­ley re­port­ed­ly im­pli­cat­ed Ro­get in block­ing a high­way dur­ing a protest over a tem­po­rary scrap met­al ban.