GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Hun­dreds, if not thou­sands, may end up on the bread­line, as Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed has dis­con­tin­ued sup­ply­ing fu­el to Unipet.

And with Christ­mas fast ap­proach­ing Unipet em­ploy­ees fear their sea­son will be grim.

Paria said its de­ci­sion to cut Unipet’s fu­el sup­ply was a con­se­quence of Unipet fail­ing to rene­go­ti­ate a sup­ply agree­ment since April 2019.

It al­so said Unipet has de­fault­ed on pay­ments owed for Sep­tem­ber and Oc­to­ber 2019 de­liv­er­ies.

“Paria has had chal­lenges re­ceiv­ing pay­ment from Unipet in ac­cor­dance with the agreed pay­ment sched­ule; this fail­ure to pay monies when due has the po­ten­tial to af­fect Paria’s abil­i­ty to pro­cure fu­el from its sup­pli­ers.

It added it is will­ing to con­tin­ue dis­cus­sions with Unipet to achieve a so­lu­tion that is both “safe and in the best in­ter­est of both com­pa­nies and which min­imis­es any dis­rup­tion of sup­ply to the lo­cal mar­ket,” the state­ment added.

Pres­i­dent of the Pe­tro­le­um Deal­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion, Robin Narayns­ingh has de­scribed the move by Paria as un­fair, un­just and re­sult­ing in vic­tim­i­sa­tion.

He is al­so call­ing for im­me­di­ate in­ter­ven­tion from Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert and the Gov­ern­ment.

De­spite the de­ci­sion, Paria is as­sur­ing the pub­lic that there is no short­age of fu­el. NP has al­so as­sured that there will be no dis­rup­tion in fu­el sup­plies at its 115 sta­tions across the coun­try.

“Paria will make avail­able to the Na­tion­al Pe­tro­le­um Mar­ket­ing Com­pa­ny (NP) the dif­fer­ence in the quan­ti­ty of fu­el re­quired to meet the coun­try’s full needs.

“NP will dis­trib­ute the full sup­ply so that the mo­tor­ing pub­lic should see no dis­rup­tion,” Paria said in a state­ment.

But Narayns­ingh said apart from job loss­es, this will now re­sult in a mo­nop­oly in the sup­ply of fu­el and even longer lines at the gas sta­tions.

“I had spo­ken with the Fi­nance Min­is­ter who promised to get back to us be­fore Christ­mas to de­ter­mine how we go for­ward.

“I am very sur­prised Paria would do this to our in­dus­try. The in­con­ve­nience es­pe­cial­ly as it’s Christ­mas time will be cat­a­stroph­ic. It is unimag­in­able that a de­ci­sion of this mag­ni­tude will take place.

“At least Paria could have wait­ed to hear the min­is­ter’s pro­nounce­ments,” Nar­i­nesingh said.

He said the as­so­ci­a­tion had filed un­der the Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act for NP to dis­close in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing its tax re­turns.

But Narayns­ingh said this was not forth­com­ing.

“That is not the way to run a coun­try or to deal with peo­ple. It is un­heard of. I am re­al­ly sor­ry this has tak­en place.

“I hope we are not de­stroy­ing the things we have cre­at­ed. Those in the pe­tro­le­um in­dus­try have served this coun­try in many ways...We mort­gaged our homes, we raised cap­i­tal, and now to have in­vest­ments...to have the rug pulled from un­der it is very un­fair to all the deal­ers. We will feel it,” Narayns­ingh added.

In re­sponse, Unipet said it will take what­ev­er ac­tion it deems nec­es­sary to pro­tect its con­sti­tu­tion­al right to op­er­ate in the mar­ket.

Unipet ac­cused Paria of act­ing on be­half of the State, say­ing it ap­pears to be “push­ing the mar­ket to­ward a mo­nop­oly sit­u­a­tion which has in the past re­sult­ed in sig­nif­i­cant drains on the trea­sury and poor stan­dards of op­er­a­tions.”

The com­pa­ny de­scribed the ac­tion by Paria as ex­treme­ly un­for­tu­nate, es­pe­cial­ly in light of fact that Paria is a mo­nop­oly sup­pli­er and Unipet will have no oth­er sources of sup­ply.

“This is­sue has been on­go­ing since April 2019 and we have con­tin­ued to ne­go­ti­ate in good faith. We ex­pect­ed that our ar­eas of mis­align­ment would be re­solved.

“The com­pa­ny is sur­prised that Paria would take such ac­tion which in ef­fect means they have with­drawn from the ne­go­ti­a­tion ta­ble with­out re­gard for the im­pact on the in­dus­try and con­sumers,” Unipet said.

The state­ment how­ev­er, was lat­er re­tract­ed.

Nu­mer­ous calls to Unipet’s CEO Dex­ter Ri­ley and it chair­man Dr Afraz Ali went unan­swered.

What­sApp mes­sages sent were read but no re­sponse was pro­vide.

Unipet cur­rent­ly has 24 ser­vice sta­tions.