Petrotrin update: now Trinidad Petroleum Holdings Ltd

[hydroep]

Interesting how Sh!tkicker described Petrotrin as a "burden on the taxpayer" in his rationale for dismantling the company, yet his administration's replacement entity is guilty of something similar eh...

Imbert approves VAT deal for Paria
Curtis Williams

Mo­torists will not ben­e­fit from a de­ci­sion by the Min­istry of Fi­nance to ex­empt Paria Fu­els Trad­ing com­pa­ny from pay­ing more than $382 mil­lion in Val­ue Added Tax.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert con­firmed that he had giv­en ap­proval for the new­ly mint­ed State en­ter­prise not to pay VAT to Gov­ern­ment on fu­el it had im­port­ed and in a what­sap mes­sage told Guardian Me­dia that there is no re­la­tion­ship be­tween VAT on im­port­ed fu­el and on VAT be­ing paid at the pump.

Mo­torists pay 12.5 per cent VAT at the pump but will not ben­e­fit from any re­lief.

In a let­ter to Paria Fu­el’s Chair­man Wil­fred Es­pinet, which GML has ob­tained a copy, Im­bert wrote, “In May, 2019 the gov­ern­ment of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go agreed that in ac­cor­dance with the pro­vi­sion of sec­tion 55 (2) of the Val­ue Added Tax Act Chap 75:06, which ap­plies Sec­tion 124 of the In­come Tax Act, Chap 75:01, to re­mis­sion to VAT Act in the sum, $382,499,481,83 on car­goes of re­fined pe­tro­le­um prod­ucts im­port­ed by Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed as at April 30th 2019.”

Im­bert said the de­ci­sion to al­low Paria not to pay its VAT was in an ef­fort to as­sist the com­pa­ny with its cash flow.

In re­sponse to ques­tions from GML a com­pa­ny spokesman ex­plained that Paria was faced with a sit­u­a­tion where it has to pay­Gov­ern­ment VAT on all the fu­el it im­ports, in­clud­ing fu­el it is buy­ing to re­sell re­gion­al­ly. How­ev­er the re­gion­al mar­kets do not at­tract VAT and it takes time for the Min­istry of Fi­nance to re­im­burse Paria the funds. There­fore it is try­ing to avoid pay­ing VAT on the im­port­ed fu­el in ad­vance.

The spokesman said: “The re­quest was not for Paria to be ex­empt from pay­ing Val­ue Added Tax (VAT), but rather for the com­pa­ny not to have to pay VAT on im­ports in ad­vance. This was hav­ing a neg­a­tive im­pact on the com­pa­ny’s cash flow, as the com­pa­ny then had to turn­around and re­claim the mon­ey from the Gov­ern­ment as VAT on ex­port sales is ze­ro-rat­ed. For lo­cal sales, Paria col­lects VAT on its re­ceipts and re­mits this to the Gov­ern­ment.”

On Mon­day night, leader of the Op­po­si­tion Kam­la Per­sad Bisses­sar al­leged that fu­el prices will rise and there will be short­ages at the pump be­cause of the chal­lenges Paria was fac­ing in ac­quir­ing US dol­lars to buy fu­el.

Two months ago, the Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian re­port­ed the forex chal­lenges that Paria was fac­ing.

In an in­ter­view with the com­pa­ny’s Chair­man Wil­fred Es­pinet he ad­mit­ted that it was a night­mare find­ing the US $20 mil­lion a month in the bank­ing sys­tem to buy fu­el.

He said: “There is a sub­stan­tial short­fall be­tween the amount of for­eign ex­change earned by Her­itage and the amount need­ed to im­port fu­els each month by Paria. The short­fall is ap­prox­i­mate­ly US$20 mil­lion a month and is cur­rent­ly ac­cessed through the lo­cal bank­ing sys­tem. The process of find­ing a sup­ply (of US dol­lars) in time to meet pay­ment sched­ules is ex­treme­ly chal­leng­ing.

My un­der­stand­ing is that there is no reg­u­la­tion in force that will al­low for­eign ex­change to be di­rect­ed to these im­ports on a pri­or­i­ty ba­sis. As a con­se­quence, car­go of­ten ar­rives in Trinidad and de­lays in pay­ments for the ship­ment re­sults in sig­nif­i­cant de­mur­rage that has to be ab­sorbed by the com­pa­ny.”

Es­pinet added: “While we seek to find a source for the for­eign ex­change short­fall, this im­bal­ance is struc­tur­al. The ul­ti­mate so­lu­tion is to in­tro­duce poli­cies to en­cour­age a more pru­dent ap­proach to fu­el con­sump­tion. This is con­sis­tent with oblig­a­tions re­strict­ing our emis­sions.” — In other words, price increases on the horizon.

In Jan­u­ary this year the Chair­man had al­so urged the gov­ern­ment to pay its bills on time, which the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Colm Im­bert tried to rub­bish say­ing that the mat­ter did not arise since the gov­ern­ment was not at the time ow­ing Paria mon­ey. How­ev­er, its clear from the time frame be­ing ex­empt, Gov­ern­ment was in fact own­ing Paria VAT re­funds in Jan­u­ary.

http://www.guardian.co.tt/news/imbert-approves-vat-deal-for-paria-6.2.882751.30d58b71aa

[shake d livin wake d dead]

who smells a possible increase in fuel? it may not be now, but let shitlickers win that election next year, allyuh will start travelling....mark thy words

[wing]

Once a foreign operator takes over the Refinery and Paria, govt won't be obliged to subsidize fuel prices. Look out diesel....

[zoom rader]

who smells a possible increase in fuel? it may not be now, but let shitlickers win that election next year, allyuh will start travelling....mark thy words

He wining hands down bro

We live in very stupid country where everybody but PNM ppl prosper

[Pointman-IA]

Expect to see a shipment of Honda City on the ports before Christmas.

[shake d livin wake d dead]

If there is another fuel increase...well not if...when, what prices we looking at??? Super around $5.50 and diesel not to far behind??

[zoom rader]

If there is another fuel increase...well not if...when, what prices we looking at??? Super around $5.50 and diesel not to far behind??

Don't mind what price it is, PNM still wining elections

[hydroep]

Rowley, OWTU clash over money paid to Petrotrin workers
KEVON FELMINE

While Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said that an av­er­age of $.5 mil­lion was paid as sev­er­ance to each Petrotrin work­er when the com­pa­ny was shut down, the Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) has ac­cused him of dis­tort­ing fig­ures.

Speak­ing at the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment pub­lic meet­ing at the Pleas­antville Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, San Fer­nan­do on Tues­day night, Row­ley said that “no one was tossed on­to the pave­ment to suf­fer”. He said tax­pay­ers paid out $2.7 bil­lion to 4,626 work­ers, many of whom have since been em­ployed some­where. He ad­mit­ted though that there were those who were still un­em­ployed.

“But if you do some math­e­mat­ics on that, the av­er­age, if you di­vide $2700 mil­lion be­tween 4,626 work­ers, that is an av­er­age of about half a mil­lion per per­son. But of course, it’s not sim­ple as that. The high­er-paid per­sons with the longer ser­vice would have got more, which means the low­er-paid peo­ple with the short­er ser­vice would have got less. But the av­er­age for the pool of peo­ple that you paid for, half a mil­lion apiece,” Row­ley said.

He said that of the 4,626 work­ers, 3,400 were per­ma­nent while the re­main­ing 1,226 were ca­su­al and tem­po­rary. Last year when Petrotrin re­struc­tured, the com­pa­ny’s Board of Di­rec­tors said that 800 would be em­ployed for Ex­plo­ration and Pro­duc­tion op­er­a­tions and an­oth­er 200 to man the ter­mi­nal fa­cil­i­ty.

Pro­vid­ing the cur­rent em­ploy­ment fig­ures, he said that of the 800 po­si­tions to be filled at Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um, 147 peo­ple who were di­rect­ly em­ployed by the com­pa­ny and con­trac­tors ac­count­ed for 534, bring­ing the to­tal count to 681. Of the 200 po­si­tions promised at the Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny, 129 were hired of which 99 were em­ployed by a con­trac­tor.

But in re­sponse yes­ter­day, OW­TU chief ed­u­ca­tion of­fi­cer Ozzi War­wick said the Row­ley has again shown his dis­con­nect from re­al­i­ty. War­wick said the state­ments al­so showed no con­cern for the suf­fer­ing of thou­sands of work­ers who are yet to find jobs.

“The Prime Min­is­ter did not men­tion that 3,000 tem­po­rary and ca­su­al work­ers got ab­solute­ly noth­ing. The Prime Min­is­ter did not men­tion that none of the sport club work­ers got noth­ing at all. He seems very un­con­cern that the young work­ers, who were now start­ing their fam­i­lies, who had mort­gages and loans, got next to noth­ing. So much so that their ve­hi­cles are be­ing re­pos­sessed, some have had to seek help to save their homes and many of them have not got any job for all these months,” War­wick said.

He said the while Row­ley threw out em­ploy­ment fig­ures, War­wick chal­lenged him to show how many were for­mer Petrotrin works.

“You may have hired 681 at Her­itage, but how many were Petrotrin work­ers? Don’t put that out there, give a prop­er break­down and say how many were Petrotrin Work­ers.”

He added that be­cause the gov­ern­ment failed to ho­n­our pay­ment to Petrotrin’s trustee, the bank is threat­en­ing to shut down the pen­sion plan.

http://www.guardian.co.tt/news/rowley-owtu-clash-over-money-paid-to-petrotrin-workers-6.2.883587.9a05d80162

[Redman]

At some point, the fact that the SUBSIDY on fuels-has ZERO to do with who owns the refinery...its a GORTT policy
will set in

[zoom rader]

Expect motor car tax to be reintroduced as government moves out the fuel bussiness.

[De Dragon]

So who responsible for the stupidity of negotiating upstream(buy high) supply whilst downstream contracts(sell low) still in place ?

You need only look at the kants who went on the junket to the UK and the US
JUHN Scarfy
Goebbels Young
Guy Smiley
The man-headed one from Finance Ministry who say if people could afford fete tickets, they could afford higher taxes.

[kstt]

RIP COMRADE

[MaxPower]

Correct, only a few care.

The others would say suicide is not the answer. They would also say suicide after job loss is an easy way out and is a sign of weakness, laziness or even stupidity. But then again, not many people would know or even care what this lad was going through.

A job loss does not mean the end of life. There are many other options but not many can walk the walk. Not many have the will power to downgrade a lifestyle. Stress from family also plays a great part....a demanding and inconsiderate wife, child maintenance and education fees, bills etc are the main players.

Be strong my friends.

[nervewrecker]

Expect to see a shipment of Honda City on the ports before Christmas.

Seems I in good hands then.

[hydroep]

019-07-12%2017.54.54.png

RIP COMRADE

RIP.

Let this be a lesson to those with agendas who pushing the talk that since they eh seeing no beatup from ex-Petrotrin workers it means that things generally worked out in their favour.

People suffering in silence...

[Redman]

019-07-12%2017.54.54.png

RIP COMRADE

RIP.

Let this be a lesson to those with agendas who pushing the talk that since they eh seeing no beatup from ex-Petrotrin workers it means that things generally worked out in their favour.

People suffering in silence...

With out wanting to sound callous....isnt that normal life for everyone?

People commit suicide for many reasons.
And at the same time there are many people with the SAME problems who chose to press on.

[MaxPower]

And at the same time there are many people with the SAME problems who chose to press on.

Some even have worse problems and rally through.

[Joshie23]

019-07-12%2017.54.54.png

RIP COMRADE

RIP.

Let this be a lesson to those with agendas who pushing the talk that since they eh seeing no beatup from ex-Petrotrin workers it means that things generally worked out in their favour.

People suffering in silence...

With out wanting to sound callous....isnt that normal life for everyone?

People commit suicide for many reasons.
And at the same time there are many people with the SAME problems who chose to press on.

Stop playing smart with schupidness, Redman. Better than that. You sound like one of those 'well she look fuh it, why she had on that dress?' kind of people. Yes, people commit suicide for many reasons, but is this the 'Many Reasons' thread? Better than that.

[wing]

It's very unfortunate what happened to him. Whatever the reasons for his actions, it's apparent that he couldn't find a way out of the hell he was going through. Could his loved ones have done more? What about the former Petrotrin? Could they have offered some sort of counseling for the affected workers? What about the OWTU? Could they have offered something to this guy in exchange for his dues that he was required to continue paying? RIP.

[sMASH]

PNM needs to disappear.
It's a cancer in this country.

[MaxPower]

To all my Friends on Tuner.

Dont give up on life.




I am MaxPower,
Love you 3000

[eliteauto]

Enjoyed that video MaxPower

[Joshie23]

To all my Friends on Tuner.

Dont give up on life.




I am MaxPower,
Love you 3000

Awesome video. Watching this actually made me get off the couch and fire up my laptop to work on a business idea I had been procrastinating on.

[Pointman-IA]

Expect to see a shipment of Honda City on the ports before Christmas.

Seems I in good hands then.

Are you Jake, Jake from State Farm?

[Pointman-IA]

It's very unfortunate what happened to him. Whatever the reasons for his actions, it's apparent that he couldn't find a way out of the hell he was going through. Could his loved ones have done more? What about the former Petrotrin? Could they have offered some sort of counseling for the affected workers? What about the OWTU? Could they have offered something to this guy in exchange for his dues that he was required to continue paying? RIP.

For TTD $4000.00, that was all that matters.

[nervewrecker]

Expect to see a shipment of Honda City on the ports before Christmas.

Seems I in good hands then.

Are you Jake, Jake from State Farm?

ofc, will be calling you at 3am to give you the best deals on insurance.....if you let me see the ride

[nervewrecker]

Kid looks familiar though.

Not bashing him or anything but men seems to have gotten too comfortable when they landed a job in there. Its always wise to never stop diversifying your skills. Many employees branched out into other things when they were there.

Poor guy maybe feel like his world ended.

[Numb3r4]

Kid looks familiar though.

Not bashing him or anything but men seems to have gotten too comfortable when they landed a job in there. Its always wise to never stop diversifying your skills. Many employees branched out into other things when they were there.

Poor guy maybe feel like his world ended.

That was/is kind of the sad part, their were genuinely guys who were good and wanted to make something, however they only saw themselves dedicating their effort to one particular company, they genuinely thought that they would be able to have one job or at least a long term one, sadly they didn't see the need to consider other options.

Many folks fed the young guys the hope that Petrotrin was a "good" company, or "yuh go get through man" or "dey need peeple"...
Folks probably doubted their own sense of good judgement, even when I was there it was common the hear, if you asked folks about the state of the company or about whether or not the company needs people many would have said yes, or "a lot of dem fellas set to retire...so they hirin' dem young fellas".

Reality and personal experience has since proved otherwise.

But back to the original point he probably planned his career/life trajectory on the now false hope that there was a long term job there, got wound too tight in expectation, the social network around the job and probably planned his life around it as well, thus when the bottom fell through well....

Another point to make is how many of the former employees older ones in general are suffering health complications on account of the added stress. It's easy to say that they lead an inflated lifestyle and that they should now bring it to a more realistic one.

I know adjustments have to made but in today's fast paced world how?


The crux of it all is that all the wrong folks are paying too high a price for the past mis-deeds of the guilty few, then again that's life.

[The_Honourable]

Like the guardian photographer get a raise...

PM's friend Baksh freed of criminal charges



THE CEO of A&V Drilling, Haniff Nizam Baksh, who is also a close friend of the Prime Minister, has been freed of criminal charges of assault and malicious damage arising out of an alleged attack on a media photographer in 2017 .

He was charged along with his son-in-law Billy Ramsundar.

The cases were set for trial in the Siparia Magistrates' Court yesterday but witnesses were a no-show and senior magistrate Margaret Alert dismissed all four charges. The police were not ready to proceed and though a state attorney requested a final adjournment to put its house in order, Alert said people cannot make a mockery of the criminal procedure rules which govern the criminal court system.

Former attorney general Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, SC, leading attorneys Prakash Ramadhar and Michael Rooplal for Baksh and Ramsundar, said since the charges on September 15, 2017, they had been called before the magistrate for hearing on more than eight occasions .

Baksh is Rowley's friend and Ramsundar is the husband of former People's National Movement senator Allyson Baksh.

Baksh was charged with occasioning actual bodily to Guardian Media Ltd's photographer Kristian De Silva. The charge against Ramsundar was that he damaged a Guardian Media Ltd camera valued at US$1,600.

The charges stemmed from an incident at A&V Drilling's compound at Nazim Avenue, Penal, where media personnel tried to interview Baksh about Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar's disclosure on the political platform of a so-called "fake oil" confidential report on the now defunct state-owned Petrotrin.

Yesterday when state attorney Ambay Ramkelawan, asked for a final adjournment, Maharaj said not even the police witnesses were present. Despite the magistrate having set the case down for trial yesterday, De Silva, the victim in the case did not appear either and no representative from Guardian Media was present.

Maharaj asked Alert to dismiss the charges.

Alert asked Baksh and Ramsundar to stand, and saying that the criminal rules were there for a purpose, she told both that the charges were dismissed.

Ramsundar is an inspector of police.

[Numb3r4]

Serious question here for those in the know.

Has anyone heard that the pension plan for the Petrotrin folks may be in jeopardy as the government has not or may not continue its obligation to the plan?

I have heard that since many of the workers were put on early retirement, the existing plan is not being withdrawn faster.

It was said that older retirees were on a different plan and as such they were "safe", however since the closure both the current set that were given early retirement and the older retirees' plans have been co-mingled so to speak and as such it may be in trouble. Mention was made that the cover for the pension is now significantly reduced.