“Itﾒs one of those things thatﾒs easier said than done; it sounds great,” Dr. Hardt said, “but when you actually get down to the nuts and bolts of how do you set up a national oil system to receive this oil, what it takes to do that, Iﾒm not really sure that petrocaribe has really lived up to its ability.”
The US envoy was a guest on the Love 97 programme “Jones and Company”, which aired on Sunday.
He said it was clear that Venezuela was using the petrocaribe initiative to gain influence throughout the region.
“Itﾒs trying to develop a mechanism of political influence and I think that youﾒre seeing that also now in the vote thatﾒs coming up on the UN Security Council where Venezuela is trying to get support in the region for it having a seat on the security council. Based on Venezuelaﾒs behaviour in other international fora such as the OAS where [it] has been disruptive and not constructive we think there are better candidates out there,” Dr. Hardt said.
US concerns regarding petrocaribe are nothing new.
Last year, US ambassador to The Bahamas John Rood raised concerns of his own.
“The Petrocaribe issue is of interest to us,” Mr. Rood said at the time.
“Iﾒm a businessperson that believes in the free market. I believe government should do as little as possible and only what they have to do and whenever government in the United States has gotten involved in a variety of issues beyond the basic areas, such as healthcare, such as housing etc., they havenﾒt done a good job.”
Still, the former Minister of Trade and Industry Leslie Miller, who is now Minister of Agriculture and Marine Resources, has continued to push the petrocaribe plan, spending a significant portion of his contribution to the budget debate in June on the topic.
But Minister of Energy and Environment Dr. Marcus Bethel has warned that The Bahamas could face “substantial” infrastructure costs should it join petrocaribe.
The oil alliance, launched a year ago, allows Caribbean countries that have signed on to purchase oil on conditions of preferential payment.
Under the plan, nations can purchase oil at market value, but are only required to pay a certain amount up front. The remainder can be paid through a 25-year financing agreement on 1 percent interest.
“Whereas such a line of credit would benefit the Bahamas in short term outlay of capital and infrastructural development programmes, there exists some operational infrastructure challenges that would prohibit early implementation of such an agreement,” explained Dr. Bethel, while contributing to debate on the 2006/2007 budget.
“The cost of transport facilities and liability insurance during transportation, also the absence of state-owned docking, pumping and storage capacity in The Bahamas, and the cost of transportation and distribution of fuel to the Family Islands, these costs must be quantified and could be substantial. Hence, further analysis is being undertaken to address these issues.”
By: Candia Dames, The Bahama Journal
