KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

For­mer En­er­gy min­is­ter Stu­art Young is call­ing on Gov­ern­ment to pro­vide more de­tails about the pro­posed re­open­ing of the Point Lisas steel plant, while urg­ing the new own­ers to en­gage the Steel Work­ers’ Union of Trinidad and To­ba­go (SWUTT).

He al­so urged cau­tion over claims that the project could cre­ate up to 1,000 jobs.

Dur­ing an Op­po­si­tion me­dia brief­ing in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, Young said the re­open­ing of the Point Lisas steel mill would be a pos­i­tive de­vel­op­ment for Trinidad and To­ba­go.

How­ev­er, he said the pub­lic needs to know what has been ne­go­ti­at­ed be­fore it can be de­ter­mined whether the deal is in the coun­try’s best in­ter­est.

Young al­so wel­comed Unit­ed States sup­port for the project but stressed that this did not re­move the need for trans­paren­cy.

“What are the con­ces­sions be­ing giv­en? Are there tax mora­to­ri­ums, mean­ing that the com­pa­ny does not have to pay tax? Im­por­ta­tion of raw ma­te­ri­als, have they waived im­port du­ties on the raw ma­te­ri­als? Have they waived ex­port du­ties on the fi­nal prod­uct? What is the rent that has been ne­go­ti­at­ed?

“You need nat­ur­al gas. Where is the nat­ur­al gas com­ing from? How many mol­e­cules need to be used? What is the price that is be­ing paid for it? That steel mill was the sin­gle largest user of elec­tric­i­ty when it was in play. What’s the price for elec­tric­i­ty you’re sell­ing it at? Is it a sub­sidised price that we, the tax­pay­ers, will car­ry, or is it a prop­er com­mer­cial price? These are some of the ques­tions. The dev­il is in the de­tails,” he said.

Young al­so ques­tioned the role of the liq­uida­tor in­volved in pre­vi­ous ef­forts to deal with the steel plant.

He said that un­der the for­mer PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion, po­ten­tial in­vestors in­ter­est­ed in the steel mill had to deal through the liq­uida­tor, as the then Gov­ern­ment had no in­volve­ment in the process.

Pin­na­cle Steel and Vana­di­um has an­nounced an ini­tial US$250 mil­lion in­vest­ment to re­fur­bish and restart the plant, with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of an­oth­er US$500 mil­lion be­ing in­vest­ed as the op­er­a­tion ex­pands.

The com­pa­ny ex­pects about 350 jobs to be cre­at­ed dur­ing the re­fur­bish­ment and restart phase, fol­lowed by 500 per­ma­nent po­si­tions once pro­duc­tion be­gins.

A fu­ture ex­pan­sion could bring em­ploy­ment to about 1,000 jobs.

Young, how­ev­er, said he was cau­tious about the vary­ing fig­ures be­ing put for­ward.

Asked about the re­vival of the steel plant cre­at­ing new jobs, Young said the com­pa­ny it­self should be the best source of in­for­ma­tion on the num­ber of jobs that would ul­ti­mate­ly be cre­at­ed, since it would be re­spon­si­ble for pay­ing the work­ers.

“You’re hear­ing hun­dreds. Then you’re hear­ing a thou­sand. So let’s wait and see,” he said.

Young said he re­mained cau­tious about the pro­ject­ed em­ploy­ment fig­ures while call­ing on the new own­ers to en­gage SWUTT.

He said the work­ers had kept the plant op­er­at­ing through dif­fi­cult pe­ri­ods and should be in­clud­ed in dis­cus­sions about its fu­ture.

“Make sure and en­gage the steel­work­ers’ trade union. Make sure and have the con­ver­sa­tions with the com­rades and the steel­work­ers who for years kept those plants up and go­ing, alive and work­ing in very dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stances,” he said.

Young said econ­o­mists and oth­ers in­ter­est­ed in the coun­try’s de­vel­op­ment should ex­am­ine the arrange­ment care­ful­ly.

“The peo­ple who are se­ri­ous about the progress of Trinidad and To­ba­go know it’s more than a sign­ing of an MOU and a cut­ting of a rib­bon,” he said.