Opposition Senator Wade Mark on Wednesday called on the government to pay the fuel subsidy directly to Paria Fuel Trading Company Ltd, instead of putting pressure on petrol station owners.
Finance Minister Colm Imbert has sought parliamentary approval for additional funding of $815.6 million for the 2022 fiscal year for two ministries, including $800 million for the Department of Energy in relation to fuel subsidy payments owed to the National Marketing Company. of Petroleum in Trinidad and Tobago. Ltd (NP) and United Independent Petroleum Company Ltd (Unipet).
The debate, which began in the House of Representatives on Monday, moved to the Senate on Wednesday.
Speaking in the Senate, in the Red House in Port of Spain, Marku said: “Why can’t the government, instead of putting pressure on NP and Unipet who have to beg on their knees for the money they collected and returned to the minister , why can’t the government pay subsidies directly to Paria? Why are you passing NP and Unipet?”
He said owners of NP and Unipet petrol stations were experiencing cash flow problems when they did not receive refunds on time. He said that the subsidy was given only in the months of July and September. “What was going on with these NP gas station owners and Unipet station owners between the months of February when Russia invaded Ukraine and the month of July. What about August and September? There is a need for the T&T Government to think outside the box,” he said.
He said Imbert said the government could not properly budget for subsidies and this led to the government being forced into the Consolidated Fund. He rejected Imbert’s explanation, saying Imbert should have had adequate knowledge and could have made the Ministry of Energy’s allocation of the subsidy from the budget, especially at the time of the $3 billion top-up in the mid-year review. “The question is why the minister did not allocate more money for subsidies in May, June and July. And couldn’t he make a public statement to the population about what was going on?” Mark asked.
Mark said in the mid-term review Imbert allocated $300 million to the fuel subsidy. This, despite Imbert himself admitting that the price of oil went to $124 per barrel. “But we are being advised that due to unforeseen circumstances and the volatility of the global energy market, the government was not able to make adequate provision for the necessary allocation of subsidies to the Ministry of Energy that would ultimately have to go for NP and Unipet. the stations, because they are the ones who collect the VAT and subsidies and they have to send it to the Ministry of Finance, which has to give money to Paris”. He said this complicated and lengthy bureaucratic arrangement was detrimental to gas station merchants.
He said Imbert confessed that he and his technocrats had oil prices under constant scrutiny and surveillance since the outbreak of war in Ukraine in February. So how then was the government caught flat-footed and unable to engineer the kind of subsidy it needed, he asked.
Mark said Imbert is always on Twitter, but he couldn’t find himself on Twitter to tell the country that the government had accessed, through two tranches, $850 million from the Consolidated Fund, $800 million of which went to subsidies. Expressing that this was done without the authorization of the parliament, Marku said: “There was no transparency, accountability, examination, honesty or debate. We are now debating $850 million – of which $800 million went to subsidies, after the fact. The stable was closed after the horse was bolted.
He said that the Government is deceiving the Assembly by saying that this was done without first coming to the Assembly due to “unforeseen circumstances”.
Earlier in the session, the Senate paid tribute to former Deputy Senate President Rawle Titus, who was hailed by all benches as a cultural icon, a cultural giant, a writer and a hero. Titus, who was known in the calypso world by the sobriquet Axeback, was a founder of the Tobago Folk Performers Council, a former vice-chairman of the Tobago Heritage Festival and a former chairman of the Carnival Development Committee. Titus, a former school teacher, principal and superintendent, was hailed as a dignified, dignified and fiercely independent person whose life was worthy of celebration.
