To understand what happened at Petrotrin, we must go back to the 1970s and 1980s through to 1990. 1970 placed nationalisation on the national agenda. Dr Eric Williams was forced to intervene because the mass movement demanded nationalisation. The industrialisation by invitation strategy failed. This led to a successful campaign by the OWTU calling for the nationalisation of Texaco. The response of the PNM following the nationalisation of that entity was to say to the national community that the government will hold these nationalised entities in trust until such time that it is appropriate to dispose of them. PM Chamber repeated that position in 1980. But in order to achieve that end you had to create the conditions and the physical appearance of a state enterprise that fits the profile for privatisation. That is where you ensure that the entity or entities are managed for failure. That is where Malcolm Jones and his team fit in. That is why the case against him was withdrawn from the Courts. So when Dr Rowley stood up in the Parliament in 2009 (see sidebar) and pretended that he was so concerned about the massive cost that the company was incurring as a result of the WGTL and the other construction works that was being undertaken at the time, he was laying down the justification for what he knew he would be doing to fulfil the PNM's long stated position. PNM never had as its central goal the establishment of a welfare state. It was the mass movement and the mood of international community in support of the ant-imperialist struggle which forced the PNM to begin a process of nationalisation. What they banked on is the fact that the population of today don't know the history and the older ones who are still alive - some or most of us have short memories. So when you play the blame game, the population will buy your story. You see while it is a fact that Petrotrin is in serious trouble, it was put into that position deliberately! When ANR Robinson decided to outline in his letter to the IMF in 1988 all the steps he was prepared to take to privatise state entities, he did so with the knowledge that it was the stated position of the PNM. Therefore he could not understand why Chambers chose only to reduce subsidies instead of following the recommendation of the Euric Bobb Committee. So Rowley is just taking up from where Robinson was forced to abandon the PNM plan. |
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