“Tec­n­i­mont award­ed a US$50 mil­lion con­tract in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” pro­claims the web­site for the MAIRE Ital­ian en­gi­neer­ing group. It goes on to say that the award is for a “re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion study” for the “Guaracara Re­fin­ery com­plex.” If true, it’s a shock­er. It does not re­veal if the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go award­ed the con­tract, but who else could? That’s not just an equiv­a­lent of TT$340 mil­lion; it was quot­ed in the scarcest of forex cur­ren­cies. Fur­ther, how can they have ex­ten­sive ac­cess to the fa­cil­i­ty to con­duct their “re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion study” with­out Gov­ern­ment ap­proval?

Min­is­ter of En­er­gy Dr Roodal Mooni­lal has in­di­cat­ed that he is aware that Tec­n­i­mont “is in­volved with Pa­tri­ot­ic En­er­gies” and that “they are one of many glob­al oil and gas cor­po­ra­tions and in­vest­ment en­ti­ties in­ter­est­ed in our re­fin­ery.” Will each of these en­ti­ties be con­duct­ing its own sep­a­rate high-cost study? Or is there one uni­ver­sal­ly re­gard­ed au­di­tor? Who will pay? Will Tec­n­i­mont’s study be ac­ces­si­ble to all bid­ders? Un­like­ly, if the Gov­ern­ment does not get pos­ses­sion of its find­ings. Are Pa­tri­ot­ic En­er­gies’ “in­vest­ment part­ners” bankrolling them with­out know­ing if they will win the ten­der to restart the re­fin­ery? Or do they know some­thing that we don’t?

Pa­tri­ot­ic En­er­gies was cre­at­ed by the Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) in 2019 to ac­quire the for­mer Petrotrin Re­fin­ery. The OW­TU sup­port­ed the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) dur­ing 2025 Gen­er­al Elec­tions and even gave the win­ning par­ty its win­ning can­di­dates for La Brea and Point Fortin. Does the OW­TU be­lieve that they will be re­ward­ed with the re­fin­ery? Is the “US$50 mil­lion” ac­tu­al­ly a safe in­vest­ment by Pa­tri­ot­ic’s part­ners? What about the re­port of the Kevin Ram­nar­ine-led “Re­fin­ery Restart Com­mit­tee”? Will po­ten­tial in­vestors ques­tion the ac­cred­i­ta­tion of its find­ings? Did the com­mit­tee find that the re­fin­ery could re­turn to op­ti­mal op­er­a­tions with­in three years and at a cost of about USD 200 mil­lion? An ad­di­tion­al study like Tec­n­i­mont’s would raise that cost by 25 per cent. I have heard of restart es­ti­mates north of US$1 bil­lion. I am sure that PM Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is far more in­ter­est­ed in ap­proach­es from the US oil ma­jors and their as­so­ciates.

Last week, I saw a dread­ful video of the kid­nap­ping of a 73-year-old grand­moth­er, Tara Po­li­ah, from her home as she seemed to en­quire about rent from her im­mi­grant board­er. The on­ly re­ac­tion she re­ceived was her be­ing bun­dled in­to a wait­ing AD wag­on by her board­er and at least three oth­er ac­com­plices. Her screams were blood­cur­dling. I re­al­ly feared that I was wit­ness­ing her last mo­ments. Such im­ages seem to ra­tio­nalise the lethal de­fence of life, limb, and prop­er­ty. How­ev­er, the vul­ner­a­ble la­dy cer­tain­ly had trust­ed her renter. She was sad­ly mis­tak­en.

Com­men­da­tions must be giv­en to the TTPS, the T&T De­fence Force, the T&T Coast Guard, and the T&T Reg­i­ment for their in­ter-agency co­or­di­na­tion in res­cu­ing Mrs Po­li­ah with­in 24 hours of her ab­duc­tion. The Coast Guard’s radar sys­tem was in­stru­men­tal in track­ing the kid­nap­pers and their vic­tim be­fore they could take her to Venezuela. Have our au­thor­i­ties cracked a cross-bor­der kid­nap­ping ring? I am hap­py that Mrs Po­li­ah has been re­unit­ed with her rel­a­tives. I hope her ab­duc­tors are quick­ly brought to jus­tice and that the pub­lic is well in­formed, es­pe­cial­ly about the would-be crim­i­nals. They must be re­mind­ed that crime doesn’t pay.

I am yet to hear about any progress in the Shan­don Ar­joon case. Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gue­var­ro, ACP Singh, Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Dhili­paul, and oth­ers, a hurt­ing fam­i­ly is de­serv­ing of jus­tice, and the wider pub­lic is ex­pect­ing up­dates on this and oth­er se­ri­ous crimes. It is hoped that your lead­er­ship will soon bring the per­pe­tra­tors to jus­tice. Our porous bor­ders would have al­lowed Mrs Po­li­ah’s tor­men­tors to en­ter Trinidad, but what about our home­grown crim­i­nals? Were they not in­no­cent in­fant cit­i­zens once? What hap­pened to dri­ve them to evil?

Last Thurs­day, about 18,000 pre-teens were sub­ject­ed to the dread­ed SEA ex­am. As a par­ent of one of them, I am re­lieved that we have fi­nal­ly got­ten a break from all those lessons, late nights, past pa­pers, and the bur­den of per­for­mance placed on these chil­dren and their fam­i­lies. How­ev­er, the reck­on­ing will come when re­sults are re­leased in ear­ly Ju­ly.

I am cer­tain that, every year, there are far more dis­ap­point­ed chil­dren than hap­py ones due to the SEA. How many young chil­dren have been dev­as­tat­ed be­cause they didn’t pass for a “pres­tige” school? How many do not have ac­cess to those ex­tra re­sources, which put them at a dis­ad­van­tage? What about the bril­liant stu­dent who is not yet able to man­age the high stress of high-stakes ex­ams at such a ten­der age? Has enough been done from Stan­dard One with each child to as­sure them that they will be val­ued con­trib­u­tors to so­ci­ety re­gard­less of the school they “pass for” at the end of Stan­dard Five? How much in­vest­ment is made in teacher pro­fes­sion­al de­vel­op­ment and mo­ti­va­tion? How much in school de­vel­op­ment? If all schools, or even more schools, were prop­er­ly re­sourced and staffed, there would be bet­ter out­comes for our chil­dren and our so­ci­ety. How many “ban­dits” went to “pres­tige” schools, I won­der? Could the rein­tro­duc­tion of a con­tin­u­ous as­sess­ment com­po­nent be a life­line to chil­dren who are oth­er­wise lost at SEA? If more hope and op­por­tu­ni­ties are giv­en to more stu­dents, more cit­i­zens are less like­ly to veer to­wards a life of crime.

Hap­py Shouter Bap­tist/Lib­er­a­tion Day, T&T.