Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Oil­field Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) pres­i­dent gen­er­al An­cel Ro­get has wel­comed the Gov­ern­ment’s bud­get, as he main­tained con­fi­dence in the an­tic­i­pat­ed restart of the Pointe-a-Pierre re­fin­ery.

Speak­ing to re­porters dur­ing the pub­lic view­ing for the late ca­lyp­so leg­end Dr Slinger “Mighty Spar­row” Fran­cis­co at the South­ern Acad­e­my for Per­form­ing Arts (SAPA) in San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day, Ro­get said Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo pre­sent­ed a good bud­get.

Re­act­ing to the Min­is­ter’s in­di­ca­tion that a short­list of pro­pos­als had been drawn up from lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al in­ter­ests, Ro­get said the OW­TU re­mained very hope­ful.

He said the union was con­fi­dent in the process and ex­pressed grat­i­tude to the Prime Min­is­ter and the Min­is­ters of Fi­nance and En­er­gy for their ef­forts to­wards restart­ing the re­fin­ery.

“We are deal­ing with prin­ci­pled peo­ple now, as op­posed to those peo­ple who are cry­ing foul and wolf on every giv­en op­por­tu­ni­ty. We pay them no mind.”

He said the re­open­ing would bring pros­per­i­ty not on­ly to the OW­TU and the peo­ple of South Trinidad, but to the wider pop­u­la­tion.

“The peo­ple will ex­pe­ri­ence pros­per­i­ty when we light that flame and we start that re­fin­ery in the in­ter­est of not just OW­TU, or not just South, but in the in­ter­est of Trinidad and To­ba­go, and that will be the end of them (PNM), the fi­nal nail in their sor­row­ful cof­fin.”

On whether he was ex­pect­ing time­lines on its phased re­open­ing, Ro­get said there were as­pects of the re­fin­ery process that he would not dis­cuss pub­licly at this stage but main­tained that the union re­mained con­fi­dent about the way for­ward.

On whether the OW­TU re­mains con­fi­dent that it has a role in the restart­ing of the re­fin­ery op­er­a­tions, he said, “Yes, the Gov­ern­ment will af­ford every­body who can play a mean­ing­ful role an op­por­tu­ni­ty to play a mean­ing­ful role in the restart of those as­sets so that every­body will ben­e­fit.”

He said he was pleased that the Gov­ern­ment has put on the front burn­er is­sues of out­stand­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions, not­ing that some were ad­dressed.

Adding that T&T Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC) work­ers’ ne­go­ti­a­tions were at the top of the list, he said, “My con­cern is to make sure that all of the mem­bers that we rep­re­sent, that they get a fair share, a fair shake of this eco­nom­ic pie. And the Gov­ern­ment is join­ing arms with us and en­sur­ing that that hap­pens. And it is all part of what? The work­ers’ agen­da. There’s a lot to come.”

He added that the coun­try is ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a ma­jor turn­around and “it’s our turn now.”

He al­so wel­comed the in­crease in grants for pen­sion­ers, the dif­fer­ent­ly abled and oth­er vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple, say­ing the gov­ern­ment had recog­nised the need to pro­vide re­lief to those who need­ed it most.

Mean­while, Ro­get said the OW­TU would not par­tic­i­pate in the march sched­uled for Oc­to­ber 30, as the union would in­stead fo­cus on prepar­ing for up­com­ing wage ne­go­ti­a­tions and en­sur­ing its mem­bers re­ceived prop­er rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

“And it is our right to, be­cause you re­mem­ber for Labour Day, some unions said that they don’t want to be part of Labour Day. Imag­ine that. But we will be very busy, very, very busy, prepar­ing for these up­com­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions and mak­ing sure that our mem­bers get the ben­e­fit and the prop­er rep­re­sen­ta­tion they de­serve, which they could not have got­ten un­der the PNM.”

He added, how­ev­er, that he will not be dis­cussing labour is­sues in the pub­lic as “the me­dia as an es­tab­lish­ment’ has al­ways been against trade unions.