Senate debates Petrotrin successor bill today

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

On the eve of Fri­day’s Labour Day ob­ser­vances, the Sen­ate will to­day de­bate a bill aimed at en­sur­ing the con­tin­u­a­tion of all col­lec­tive agree­ments to which Petrotrin was a par­ty, through its suc­ces­sor com­pa­nies Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny Ltd and Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny Ltd.

Labour Min­is­ter Leroy Bap­tiste will pi­lot the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions (Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um, Paria Fu­el Trad­ing and Guaracara Re­fin­ing Vest­ing) (Amend­ment) Bill, 2026.

Ac­cord­ing to the bill’s ex­plana­to­ry notes, the amend­ment will deem Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um and Paria Fu­el Trad­ing as the suc­ces­sors to Petrotrin for the pur­pos­es of ex­ist­ing col­lec­tive agree­ments and the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act, Chap. 88:01.

As a re­sult, all col­lec­tive agree­ments with­in the mean­ing of the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act, or any re­place­ment or mod­i­fi­ca­tion in ef­fect be­fore the ap­point­ed day, to which Petrotrin was a par­ty, will be treat­ed as if Her­itage and Paria were par­ties to those agree­ments.

The change will be deemed to have come in­to force retroac­tive­ly from De­cem­ber 1, 2018, the day af­ter Petrotrin was of­fi­cial­ly closed on No­vem­ber 30, 2018.

The bill is al­so ex­pect­ed to be de­bat­ed in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives to­mor­row.

Mean­while, the Sen­ate will al­so de­bate the Mid-Year Re­view’s Sup­ple­men­ta­tion and Vari­a­tion of Ap­pro­pri­a­tion Bill, along with the re­port of the Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee, both of which were ap­proved in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on Mon­day.

Through these mea­sures, the Gov­ern­ment has added $2.93 bil­lion in sup­ple­men­tary fund­ing to the 2026 Bud­get of $59.2 bil­lion.

The ad­di­tion­al funds will cov­er re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture across 27 di­vi­sions up to the end of the 2026 fis­cal year in Sep­tem­ber, with sig­nif­i­cant al­lo­ca­tions for salaries, wages, con­tract em­ploy­ment and new hir­ing.

It will al­so sup­port high­er salary pay­ments now be­ing re­ceived by 62,050 work­ers, and vary fund­ing across sev­er­al min­istries to the tune of $737.5 mil­lion.