Moonilal denies Paria for sale to Trafigura

An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

For­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter Stu­art Young has ques­tioned whether the Gov­ern­ment is pur­su­ing a deal in­volv­ing state-owned Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny and glob­al com­modi­ties com­pa­ny Trafigu­ra, warn­ing that any loss of State con­trol over the com­pa­ny’s as­sets could threat­en Trinidad and To­ba­go’s fu­el se­cu­ri­ty.

Speak­ing dur­ing de­bate on the Mid-Year Bud­get Re­view in the Low­er House yes­ter­day, Young said in­for­ma­tion re­ceived over the week­end raised con­cerns about the fu­ture of Paria, the state-owned pe­tro­le­um lo­gis­tics and trad­ing com­pa­ny es­tab­lished in 2018.

He not­ed that Paria is the sole sup­pli­er of re­fined pe­tro­le­um prod­ucts to the lo­cal mar­ket and a ma­jor dis­trib­u­tor through­out the Caribbean.

“The ques­tion we have to­day for the Gov­ern­ment is, have they signed a deal with Trafigu­ra for the sale of Paria or Paria’s as­sets, which are the pipelines and the tank farm that are there?” Young asked.

He warned that such a move would have se­ri­ous im­pli­ca­tions for the coun­try.

“If that hap­pens and the Gov­ern­ment los­es con­trol of the as­sets in Paria, that will be a dis­as­ter for T&T,” Young said.

He added that he had been in­formed a deal had ei­ther al­ready been signed or was in the process of be­ing signed.

“That will de­stroy our en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty and our do­mes­tic fu­el sup­ply se­cu­ri­ty com­plete­ly,” he ar­gued.

Re­spond­ing lat­er in the de­bate, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal dis­missed the al­le­ga­tions and de­nied any knowl­edge of such a trans­ac­tion.
“I heard the mem­ber make some abom­inable, un­be­liev­able, in­cred­i­ble, re­mark­able ac­cu­sa­tions that this Gov­ern­ment is sell­ing all the as­sets,” Mooni­lal said.

The min­is­ter told Par­lia­ment that nei­ther he nor Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar was aware of any such arrange­ment.

“I want to say clear­ly for the record, if the mem­ber for Siparia and I are not aware of that, it can­not be hap­pen­ing. It can­not be hap­pen­ing. You can’t dream these things and come here,” he stat­ed.

Mooni­lal chal­lenged Young to pro­vide ev­i­dence to sup­port the claim.

“If you have the ev­i­dence of that, please bring it forth. He has none. He is just try­ing to make pub­lic mis­chief,” he main­tained.

The En­er­gy Min­is­ter al­so stressed that any dis­pos­al of State as­sets would be gov­erned by law and es­tab­lished pro­ce­dures.

“These things are not for sale that way, and any process to deal with as­sets and so on, we have laws that gov­ern that,” Mooni­lal said.

He crit­i­cised sug­ges­tions that strate­gic en­er­gy as­sets could sim­ply be sold with­out over­sight, adding, “You can­not just pick up the train sta­tion and sell it away, take the truck and sell it away.”

The is­sue was raised dur­ing the de­bate as Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion mem­bers con­tin­ued to clash over the man­age­ment of the coun­try’s en­er­gy sec­tor and State-owned as­sets.