President General of the Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union, Ancel Roget, has challenged Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley and Energy Minister Stuart Young to a debate on the closure of the Petrotrin Refinery.
Speaking at the annual Labour Day march in Fyzabad, he again questioned the decision by Government to come out of the refinery business.
And despite the announcement of a recent interest in the Pointe-a-Pierre Refinery by Naveen Jindal, Chairman of Jindal Steel and Power Limited from India, Mr. Roget said the union must have a role to play.
Roget said: “We are in the process of bidding and they would have, through their people in Paria, asked us all the difficult questions and asked us to provide finance to how we are going to start and run the refinery. I want to report to you we have provided answers to every one of those questions that was asked. They closed the bidding process on May 10 and they have ten entities bidding for the refinery.
“This afternoon, let me say clearly: you see the oil industry in Trinidad and Tobago, this oil industry that was built on the back of the sweat and tears of our ancestors who had to tote pipe in burning sun and the rain and all hours of the night, who had to work in that refinery to ensure that Trinidad and Tobago can put food on the table in earned revenue and foreign exchange, I want to say that the OWTU will not stand idly by and allow anybody to walk in here and take over that refinery,” he said.