Manning: UNC killed Labidco

Prime Minister Patrick Manning yesterday said that the decision taken by the United National Congress, when in power, to abort the La Brea Industrial Development Company (Labidco) project more than a decade ago resulted in the death of the estate. Speaking at a breakfast seminar at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, he also said that the UNC’s investigations into the project, when it came into office in 1995, were unsubstantiated since there was “nothing to find.” Under the administration of the People’s National Movement (PNM) in 1991-95, the decision was taken to locate an industrial estate at La Brea/Brighton.

When the UNC came into power, however, it immediately set up investigations into the project, using the argument that the project was politically motivated and undertaken without the necessary studies and evaluations to determine the financial benefits to the country. These allegations, Manning said, were unfounded since he himself led one of the investigations. He stated that the decision to condemn the La Brea Industrial Estate was made for political reasons and had other serious implications, specifically the significant losses experienced by the National Gas Company (NGC), which was left to fend for itself on the estate. When the project was aborted, he explained, the government of the day had already purchased pipe to construct a spur on the estate. Some of this pipe was used to build a corridor costing US$18 million, but some was also disposed off.

The NGC, Manning continued, only avoided major loss when bp Amoco made the decision to reduce gas prices. This meant that the company paid lower taxes and, from 1998 to 2003, the loss in taxes amounted to approximately TT$306 million. The NGC itself saw losses of TT$225 million, with the approximate losses over the six-year period amounting to TT$645 million. Additionally, he said, the UNC government was unaware that the Labidco estate was first considered for farmland, which was offered at a special introductory price. “They got a price,” he explained, “which eventually turned out to be 36 cents more than the value of the plants at Point Lisas. But the plants at Point Lisas had a clause in their contract that said if somebody gets a gas price for them, they are entitled to pay at the gas price, a most favoured nation clause.

“This was not taken into account.” Therefore, when the Labidco estate was condemned, the farmland was forced to move one and a half miles north of the industrial estate in Point Lisas. “All this because a policy was being pursued to try to denigrate the previous administration for narrow partisan bahaviour,” Manning maintained. As it now stands, he went on, the Government has begun to move towards developing the Union Estate at La Brea, which is adjunct to the estate at Labidco. This was linked to a policy shift in dealing with the country’s industrial plants, which entails all plants will now be located between Point Lisas and Icacos on the west coast.