Curious pullout by Jindal

If a hard-nosed investor declines a deal because of criticism from a country’s Opposition party, then how serious was he about the investment?

This is the question that inevitably arises now that Indian businessman Naveen Jindal, chairman of Jindal Steel and Power Ltd, is no longer pursuing a bid for the mothballed Petrotrin refinery.

In a letter dated July 26 to Rowley obtained by the Sunday Express, Jindal wrote: “The character assassination I experienced merely for considering the investment opportunity in the Guaracara refinery was deeply disheartening and discouraging,” adding, “Such actions will likely deter potential investors…the behaviour exhibited by the Opposition in this instance risks causing significant economic and reputational damage to Trinidad and Tobago.”

Jindal is under investigation by India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for allegedly misallocating mining rights. This was the issue raised by the Opposition United National Congress (UNC) when Jindal visited Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley in June to discuss the refinery bid.

Even if we take Jindal’s letter at face value, it means that he did not consider the US$700 million investment cited by Dr Rowley to be worth the reputational risk. Yet Mr Jindal has already experienced injury to his professional image because of the allegations of corruption in his native India. What new problems could have been caused by the UNC raising an issue already in the public domain?

“This is Sandals all over again,” Dr Rowley said at his constituency meeting on Saturday, asserting “that is a result of the behaviour of parliamentarians who should be encouraging investment.”

The comparison with the Sandals project, however, hardly reflects well on the present administration. The Jamaica-based hotel chain only pulled back from that deal after it emerged that, far from being a real investment, all the financing was to be done by the Government, with Sandals additionally getting significant concessions for managing the proposed resort.

Dr Rowley’s invoking Sandals thus raises questions about what advantages Mr Jindal would have demanded for buying the refinery. Moreover, since Jindal’s letter describes the UNC as the “purported government in waiting”, the implication is that the deal would not have been finalised before the general election due in 2025 and Jindal was not confident he would then be negotiating with the same administration.

If so, then the curious focus on the Opposition in Jindal’s letter begins to make sense as a strategy to perhaps help Dr Rowley retain office, if Jindal plans to re-open talks.

Beyond all this, however, is the hard fact that the Government has been mishandling the sale of the refinery ever since shuttering Petrotrin in 2018. The Rowley administration took this decision with no coherent plan to line up investors and, in the six years since, has reportedly rejected several offers, even as the plant degrades daily into scrap metal.

For that ongoing disaster, the Prime Minister has no one to blame but himself.