Service stations on brink of shutting down

Ramnarine was one of the speakers at a seminar entitled “The Fuel Subsidy The New Reality” held yesterday at the Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business, Mount Hope. He said these small gas stations are “tottering on the brink of going out of business.” He said that in a major gas station such as those located around Port-of-Spain, about fifty percent of its revenue comes from the Quick Shop and 50 percent from the sale of fuel.

He said that in the rural areas which have mainly small gas stations, almost ninety percent of their revenue comes from the sale of gasolene and they are tottering on the brink of going out of business.

He said through the Petroleum Dealers Association, the independent dealers association __ Unipet __ and other organisations, the service station owners had made representations to the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Energy “but it seems that they have not been heard or that they have not been heard yet or no action has been taken as yet.” Ramnarine added that “if it is not addressed, you are going to have dislocation.” He said there had already been closures of service stations in the Princes Town and Moruga areas.

He said he recalled as a child that there were “four or five” service stations in Sangre Grande but now there were only two or “one and a half” because one is very small.

“Towns like Princes Town; Rio Claro; Sangre Grande; La Brea, Point Fortin and so on,there is actually a difficulty getting fuel there.” He said that a number of new stations had been approved during his time as Minister of Energy but those stations were in various stages of construction. He said he was really concerned about the rural areas and called on Finance Minister Colm Imbert to address the issue when debate on the budget moves to the Senate.

He said the service station network is concentrated along the Eastern Main Road and the Southern Main Road because this was how the country developed but nowadays there were not many service stations along the highways which is where most of the traffic passes.

The forum also heard from Dr Afraz Ali who spoke about the Fuel Subsidy: re-balancing the equation