The Finance Ministry issued a statement yesterday claiming that our reporting on Paria's financing challenges was misleading and mischievous.
In responding to our story, Minister of Finance Colm Imbert says the Government was committed to providing Paria Fuel Trading Company with "whatever financial support it requires" as the country’s sole importer of fuel.
The Minister was responding to an exclusive article in this newspaper where Paria’s Chairman Wilfred Espinet expressed frustration with delays in the provision of subsidies to allow the company to pay for the importation of fuel.
Espinet was reported to have said the company needed to have the Ministry of Finance pay its fuel subsidy on time.
Minister Imbert's press statement read, “For the record, the Government fully supports the transformation and restructuring of Petrotrin and the new arrangements for the importation of fuel, and is providing, and will provide, the Paria Fuel Trading Company with whatever financial support it requires in the transition from a manufacturer of fuel to an importer of fuel.”
Paria Fuel Trading Company has never been a manufacturer of fuel as suggested by the Minister of Finance statement and since its startup has been an importer of fuel.
Meantime, in a separate statement, Espinet attempted to walk back his comments in reacting to the Guardian report saying he was concerned about the potential adverse effect that the story could have on relationships and the objectives at the State-owned oil companies.
He claimed the story misrepresented his conversation with the reporter.
"We continue to work closely with all our stakeholders to ensure sustainability of the newly-formed companies," his short statement said.
While the Finance Minister & Paria Chairman Wilfred Espinet attempt to refute this newspaper’s account of the conversation, Guardian Media stands by its reporting.
The critical detail in Tuesday’s report came from the conversation conducted by Curtis Williams with Espinet, where the chairman explained Paria’s predicament with financing its debt.
“Well we are working through all the details, but it is important that we operate the company in a way that is in keeping with the way public companies are run. Curtis, you don’t know how challenging it is. It is a fight to make the government understand that it has to pay its bills and it must pay them on time. When you go to the Ministry of Finance they do not really care that you have workers to pay, all they say is that your cheque is not ready. We cannot do business in this way, and while there are ways we can deal with this in terms of not paying government monies we owe to them, we don’t want to make this thing so messy. You know before the fuel is even loaded, we have to pay for it, and the Ministry of Finance cannot expect to pay when it wants, because this is a commercial enterprise. At the end of the day, the decision to keep a limited fuel subsidy is a political decision, and we are not responsible for that. Therefore it is for the government to pay and we expect payment on a quarterly basis. We also have to insist on efficient payment from NP.”
Imbert sought to rubbish the story by claiming that he had a conversation in which the Chairman assured him that the discussion with the Guardian painted a hypothetical situation, saying it was not based on reality.
“It is the Ministry’s understanding that Mr Espinet had a conversation with the reporter involving theoretical “what-if” scenarios about what might or might not happen if funding is not made available to the Paria Fuel Trading Company on a timely basis.”
Guardian Media maintains that nowhere in the conversation was the suggestion of a scenario or hypothetical situation.
The business sector has long complained about the failure of the Ministry of Finance to make timely payments and owing hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid VAT refunds.
Up to the time of its closure, Petrotrin was owed hundreds of millions of dollars in fuel subsidy.