By Sue-Ann Wayow
PRIME Minister Dr Keith Rowley was clouded by anger when he made his statements concerning “dotish” labour leaders on Saturday and was purposely peddling misinformation.
This is the opinion of leader of the Joint Trade Union Movement (JTUM) and the Oilfield Workers’ Trade Union (OWTU) Ancel Roget.
Roget on Monday, held a press conference to respond to the Prime Minister’s statements that labour leaders were leading workers astray and that Government had to restructure Petrotrin in order to not incur additional repercussions.
Roget said, “He (Dr Rowley) is incoherent. He feeds the public with misinformation.”
The union leader said again, Dr Rowley attacked the union and every time he does so, his statements will continue to be condemned by the union.
“We condemn it to be untrue. We condemn those statements to be outright lies,” he said.
Roget said various union leaders including himself have said that they do not trust the prime minister and the Government he leads which was unfortunate because a prime minister supposed to be a trustworthy individual.
Roget played short video clips from years ago even when Patrick Manning was prime minister saying “Show me a liar and I will show you a thief” and one that included Dr Rowley declaring, “The Government is not closing down Petrotrin!”
The union leader refuted all of Dr Rowley’s statements concerning the OWTU and the closure of Petrotrin by playing short video clips from the People’s National Movement (PNM) political meeting on Saturday night.
He challenged Dr Rowley to show proof that he would have asked Roget to sit with him to discuss pressing issues.
He said even if he was invited, he would not be sitting down with the Prime Minister by himself “to discuss no matter in secret.”
Roget said if ever a meeting would be held, communication would take place with the official personnel, a union team would be attending and the media would be informed of those meetings and the details of the meetings afterwards.
Roget also told of the history of the OWTU’s proposed deal to the Government to purchase the refinery at Pointe-a-Pierre and that the Government was yet to respond to the last proposal sent.
“The Cabinet is yet to respond to the offer coming from the company identifying a financier that will be able to stand with us and they closed off all discussions because they know what they want to do. They know why they shut down Petrotrin,” he said.
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