Dog, Tail and Dog Owner

Government-appointed Chairman of state-owned-enterprise Trinidad Petroleum Holdings Ltd (TPHL) which replaced Petrotrin announced moves to put Paria Fuel Trading, a TPHL subsidiary, up for sale.
Chairman Espinet suggested that Paria Fuel is unprofitable and not of strategic importance.
Once Espinet’s announcement of issuing Request for Proposals for purchase of Paria, appeared in the national media, the Energy Minister responded almost immediately declaring Paria Fuel is a ‘strategic State asset’ and divestment of the company “is not within the current mandate of the Government to TPHL”.
In a follow-up article Energy Minister Franklin Khan said he had directed Paria Fuel’s parent company, Trinidad Petroleum Holdings Ltd (TPH), “to withdraw and retract any advertisement or Request for Proposals that may have been inadvertently issued for the sale of the Paria Fuel Trading Company Ltd.”.
So here is a tale that goes like this – This must go. We selling it. No No No…you eh selling nutten.
This would be a comedy if were not so serious.
How does a Government-appointed agent decide to dispense with a state-owned company, apparently without the approval of the relevant Minister or Government?
How does that Chairman issue an RFP for sale of a state-owned-enterprise (SOE) contrary to the policy of the Government and without the line Minister not even being aware of this decision or action?
Sounds like an Antsy story of the dog and its tail and who wagging who; if that is what really happened.
Either the Chairman seriously overstepping his authority or the Minister totally out of the loop.
Whichever it may be, if that is the truth at all and not just the parody for public consumption, there is a bigger question.
The Public Procurement law which remains on paper only also directs how the disposal of state assets is to be conducted and accounted for.
The fact that his law remains unimplemented facilitates these bizarre episodes of arbitrary dealing with Public Property to facilitate Private Right to the detriment of Public Right.
Let us not lose sight of this most vital matter under the glare of contrived drama.
Unless we are all totally stupid, no one can believe, based on what we know about how Government and State business is done, based on our own experience of these matters, that an RFP for the sale of an SOE can be issued ‘inadvertently’- by mistake or vaps.
Or, is it a case that the tail (Chairman) is not just wagging the dog (the Government) but the tail is acting on the instructions of the Dog Owner – the 1% controllers of economic and political power – the Parasitic Oligarchy.
We have been told another tale – that the state is a neutral entity standing above particular interests within the body politic.
The truth is that the state is an instrument of the rich and powerful to facilitate their control and safeguard their interests.
Sometimes those that the state serves decide to take matters into their own hands or the hands of particular agents they recruit.
If Espinet was in fact acting very deliberately on the instructions of the Private Right Interest, this spells a most serious step in the direction of the Parasitic Oligarchy seeking to impose its dictate on society directly (without the intermediary of its state apparatus).
This development calls for the staunchest vigilance and action to prevent the establishment of a draconian and authoritarian form of rule based on Private Right over Public Right that the world knows as Fascism.
Clyde Weatherhead
A Citizen Fighting for
Democratic Renewal of
Our Society.
19 March 2019