HEAVEN
THE JAMAICA Gasolene Retailers Association (JGRA) has given marketing company Esso Standard Oil until March 16, to suspend its pricing strategy, desist from discrimination and victimisation of its dealers and withdraw the termination notice served on one of its dealers.
The JGRA has warned that if this was not done, it "cannot guarantee normality in the petroleum retail trade."
"It is grossly unfair and this is typical of these multi-national companies and we cannot accept this," Trevor Heaven, president of the JGRA, told The Gleaner.
Esso's pricing strategy, which has been a bone of contention between the marketing company and its retailers since last year, is now the focus of a Board of Inquiry being conducted by the Fair Trading Commission. It took the intervention of the Ministry of Labour to avert a shutdown of the industry last November after retailers accused Esso of an unfair pricing strategy. That issue is yet to be resolved.
Efforts to get a comment from the marketing company were unsuccessful.
