NOT GOOD FOR TT

However, while acknowledging Roget’s statement “was unhealthy”, Rowley said, “this is still a free country and leaders choose to lead their followers the way they see fit. At the end of the day, it is Trinidad and Tobago in the boardrooms from where I have just come.” “Lead in a way that is beneficial to the national well-being,” Rowley urged leaders, at every level.

“Fortunately it will fall to the worker as to where they are being led,” he added saying that Government must ensure the best decisions are made for the wider national good.

Asked several times, in an interview yesterday morning aired on CNC 3’s The Morning Brew programme, if Roget’s comments had any impact on the country’s investment climate, Rowley said, “I think BP was as disappointed as we were, because every single day we need to be attracting foreign investment to this country.” Workers have a responsibility, he said, to influence their leadership, to understand what the reality is, and what the current circumstances call for.

BP’s decision to build the Angelin platform outside of Trinidad and Tobago, he said, was taken a long-time ago and it was one of the reasons he met with top executives in the US, to see if he could get them (BP) to change their mind. Their decision, he said, was made after the contractor for the earlier Juniper project did not meet deadlines.

Rowley said it was a matter of concern when investors are picking up their plants in South America and taking them to North America where gas is more available in terms of volume and price. In TT, he said, plants are closing because of a lack of gas.

“That is not the kind of environment that attracts investment in the gas industry.” On discussions with Exxon Mobil in Guyana, Rowley said his discussions was based on TT having an oil refinery with a capacity to produce 168,000 barrels of oil a day. “We are only producing 72,000 barrels. If we can get oil from Guyana to be refined in our refinery, it puts us in a better position,” he said.

During the last Caricom Heads of Government meeting in Guyana last year, Rowley said, he spent some time with Guyana’s President David Granger and his senior Cabinet members discussing the issue. TT’s public and private sector is saying to Guyana, the prime minister said, that they want to be a part of that country’s oil industry arrival and its operations.

On the issue of a Petrotrin committee looking at the overall operations of the problem plagued State-owned company, Rowley said its deadline to submit a report has been extended from June 1, and will now be given until December. Noting that many things are going wrong at Petrotrin, Rowley said, “Government will not be hesitant to make decisions which might be unpopular, if those are the recommendations, so as to put the company in the best position.”