“Humiliated” by the discovery of her plagiarism, Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar decided to “interfere, intervene, undermine, lambaste and destroy”.
So said Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley at a news conference yesterday at the Diplomatic Centre, St Ann’s, at which he castigated the Opposition Leader for what he said was her consistent pattern of undermining Trinidad and Tobago’s national interests.
He said it was her failure to issue “a simple two-line congratulatory message (to US president-elect Joe Biden) that led to her “desperate search” for a distraction and, in the process, she resorted to being irresponsible which could have grave consequences.
He said much of what the Opposition Leader said at her Monday Night Forum were lies designed to damage the country and, he warned, could have grave consequences.
“If as a result of this behaviour Patriotic (Energies and Technologies) lose their partners in any way and are not able to continue as we expect and we do not get the refinery started, it will be a continuation of a refinery being closed down,” he said.
“She (Persad-Bissessar) was in deep doo-doo” and “she found her way out of that by looking into her mailbox and pulling out the document on the Patriotic negotiations, “which she was happy to bring to the public”.
Noting that these negotiations between Patriotic and Paria Fuel were being conducted behind closed doors so as “to protect positions as they evolve” until a point of agreement is arrived at, the Prime Minister said: “I don’t know where the Opposition Leader is coming from now to ‘surprise’ the country in her weekend of discovery by telling the country that she has discovered that the Government intends to sell the refinery.”
‘No mark to buss’
Stating that all the dealings with Patriotic were against the background of an offer to sell the refinery, the Prime Minister said he didn’t know why the Opposition Leader felt she could “drag herself out of her dismal weekend” with the “news” from her mailbox.
Wondering if it was the same mailbox that she got the plagiarised message of congratulations to Biden, the Prime Minister said: “There is absolutely no news in that. It is an act of desperation”. He said it was also no discovery that Paria could be sold.
“It is no mark to buss,” he insisted, adding that he, as Prime Minister, and other members of the Government had stated clearly at the time of the closure of the refinery what it had intended with Petrotrin assets.
He also said for the Opposition Leader to “pretend” there was an issue with the Government conducting these negotiations without the proclamation of the Procurement Act is to cause him to ask her what procurement legislation she had used when she gave SIS the billion-dollar Beetham Wastewater contract for the facility in Sea Lots, “which is now rusting in the bush”.
“That (Beetham contract) was a simple one which could have easily fallen under the procurement legislation, he said, as opposed to the Paria/Patriotic discussions which involve negotiations between a Government authority and the buyer.
“So this pretence that something is happening outside of legislation is absolute tomfoolery and, coming from a former prime minister, it is getting to the point of being annoying,” the Prime Minister said.
Mortgage doesn’t stop the sale
Noting that Persad-Bissessar was also telling the country the refinery could not be sold because there was a mortgage on it, the Prime Minister said: “What dotishness! So all the houses in neighbourhoods like Goodwood Park, Belmont and wherever you have houses in this country and people have a mortgage, please be advised by the Opposition Leader that you cannot sell your house,” the Prime Minister said sarcastically.
“Have you ever heard anything more ridiculous? If there is a mortgage on an asset and it has to be sold, it simply requires a change of the relationship between the seller and the mortgagor and you work out whatever you have to work out; and the sale takes place and you determine what happens to the proceeds and so on.
“But to categorically come out as senior counsel and Opposition Leader and a former prime minister and tell the country that we have been engaged in fooling people and fooling the country because there is a lien on the assets, it either tells me that the Opposition Leader is a lot less than we think she is or she deliberately devious and destructive,” the Prime Minister stated.
“Because what she has done by this behaviour… can only be regarded as very destructive, undermining conduct hoping to destroy any prospect of success in this matter,” the Prime Minister added.
Rowley said the Opposition Leader was also hoping to scare bankers away from OWTU and Patriotic. “Because bankers are very skittish, the minute they hear that there is a to-ing and fro-ing in this type of situation, bankers are very conservative, they likely to say ‘listen, I don’t think I want to get involved in this’.”
He noted that the Opposition Leader went as far as to name a particular bank (RBC) referred to in the document which has offered to consider funding half of the operations for Patriotic. “And while that is the sensitive position, you (Persad-Bissessar) come out and create mayhem,” he said.
The Prime Minister said the Government was still hoping that by the November 30 deadline, positions could change and the deal is struck.
Misleading population on Trafigura
Noting that the Opposition Leader also “launched a tirade against Trafigura, the Prime Minister said: “Suppose Trafigura takes the position that ‘yuh see Trinidad and Tobago where we are being accused of X,Y and Z, maybe we should give it a rest’. Where does that leave Patriotic?
“If Trafigura and their supply of crude and their supply of funding backs away from the deal? Doesn’t this sound familiar? You remember Sandals?”.
He recalled that long before the Government got to negotiating any terms and conditions with Sandals, the Opposition and its mouthpieces were doing “the same very thing that she did on Monday night (with the Patriotic deal) and the “Sandals family pulled out and said ‘we can do without you (T&T)”.
“The Opposition Leader on Monday night and on last night’s (Tuesday) news, put this project in jeopardy because people who Patriotic rely on, to go forward, in dealing and in committing itself to the Government—banker and fuel supplier—are now the target of political attack in Trinidad and Tobago,” he said.
He said the Opposition Leader was now accusing Trafigura of “rape and pillage”, but he said he was pretty sure if one looked at the records of Petrotrin, one would find that the company did business with the same Trafigura, one of the largest traders of fuel in the world, during the period Persad-Bissessar led the government.
Energy Minister Franklin Khan subsequently stated that during the period 2010-2015 Phoenix Park Processors, a state enterprise and a subsidiary of NGC, did business with Trafigura, to the tune of $1.2 billion (US $177 million).
Playing the ‘town crier’
The Prime Minister described the Opposition Leader’s statements as a “shot under the belly of the effort of Patriotic and OWTU to break a mould on behalf of workers and try to get involved in business”.
On the issue of granting exemptions, which the Opposition Leader cited as part of the document, the Prime Minister questioned since when this was something to scare the country.
“There are very few businesses in this country that have not got some kind of exemption from the Minister of Finance if that is what is required to foster and nurture the business,” he said.
The Prime Minister also castigated the Opposition Leader for playing the “town crier” about the Trinidad and Tobago banking system being in trouble and the IMF stating as such, saying this was at variance with the truth and the facts. He said the currency of the banking business was confidence, and the Opposition Leader’s reckless behaviour was threatening that confidence.
