Former Caroni workers to get lands

Former Caroni workers will soon be able to get lands. The Caroni Lands Vesting Bill is to be brought to Parliament soon, Minister in the Ministry of Finance Christine Sahadeo said yesterday. “It means that Government would be able to keep its commitment to former Caroni workers to give them priority with respect to the selection and distribution of lands,” she said. The bill would also facilitate the management and development of businesses particularly in the heavy and light industries as well as the development of housing and agriculture, she added. She was speaking in the Senate on the Finance (Supplementation and Vari-ation of Appropriation) bill. Sahadeo said 50 percent of the former monthly paid workers had been trained, but only 25 percent of the former daily paid workers accessed training.

She said Government had embarked on an “ambitious programme” of trying to encourage former workers to take advantage of the various training opportunities. Asked how many of these trained former workers had been employed, Sahadeo said she didn’t have figures. However she said Government was currently assisting persons with skills to get employment.  She also added, that Government was trying to create entrepreneurship and to focus on the numbers who were employed was a retrograde step. On the issue of oil and gas revenues,  Sahadeo conceded that Government was not getting the projected revenues from oil and natural gas. She said Government had absolutely no control over the capital expenditure by oil companies. She said what tended to happen was that when there were high oil prices, it was an incentive for these companies to spend large amounts as an efficient measure of taxation planning (to escape taxation).

She said all this had contributed to Government not getting the anticipated revenues from the oil and gas sector. She said it was therefore imperative that Government brought legislative changes in the form of a new oil tax regime to ensure that the country benefited from the increase in prices of energy products. Sahadeo said while there was a fall in gas production between January and September, it was offset  by the increase in gas prices from US$1.20 to US$1.91. Opposition Senator Carolyn Seeper-sad-Bachan earlier criticised Government for placing too heavy a dependence on the oil and gas sector while doing nothing to diversify the economy. “It’s like we are tripping over black gold,” she said, adding that Government seemed almost entirely “taken up” with the proceeds of the energy sector. She said Government appeared not to have learnt the lessons of the 1970s where such a policy led to a serious economic decline when oil prices fall.

“This boom is not going to last forever,” she warned. Seepersad-Bachan called on Government to bring a new oil and gas fiscal regime designed to reap more revenue from this sector. She said amid high oil and gas prices for this year, Government had not brought the legislation  to ensure that it could extract the best revenues from the exploitation of the natural resources of this country. Saying that the last Government had done the groundwork since 2001, the UNC Senator said Government, which had been promising to bring legislation since 2002, had procrastinated for too long. Since January nothing had happened, she complained. She said not only was Government losing revenues, “marginal producers” were negatively affected.

She said local companies in South Trinidad were closing down and laying off people. “There is now a crisis in the South, were all these companies are no longer operating,” she said. She urged Government “to intervene on behalf of  South Trinidad and halt this economic crisis.” On the issue of crime, Seepersad-Bachan said Government was spending money on advertising, “for propaganda,” instead of using the resources to fight crime. She said up to now there was no DNA testing in Trinidad and Tobago. She added that she saw no money for the building of police stations, or for bullet proof vests.