THE Consumer Affairs Commission (CAC) is shaping up to file a multimillion-dollar lawsuit on behalf of motorists who claimed their vehicles were damaged by contaminated petrol sold to them at gas stations across the island between 2014 and 2015.

Attorney-at-law and chairman of the CAC Kent Gammon says the negotiations with the stakeholders along the supply chain have now come to an impasse, but that the CAC would make one last attempt at a settlement.

“All of us would prefer that, and it’s in the best interest of the consumer and the stakeholders,” he said in a

Jamaica Observer interview yesterday. “The CAC will be filing a claim. We are starting the process now, we have decided that we are going to court. I wish I had another choice. We really tried because a settlement is always better than litigation, but I feel like I have no choice,” he stressed.

Gammon said the CAC has been meeting with the retailers, marketing companies and all other critical stakeholders for the past few months, trying to arrive at a settlement and that after a meeting in December it was thought that a settlement had been reached. “So I was on record saying that by the end of January we hope to have a resolution and we will be able to announce to the public what the terms of the agreement are,” he explained.

However, he said in mid-January those discussions broke down, as some of the key stakeholders said the CAC misinterpreted their position. Gammon says no one is willing to take responsibility, because the Petroleum Trade Reform Committee which was set up to probe the source of the bad gas had found none of the stakeholders along the continuum of the trade liable. “Everybody is pointing their fingers, and that has been the problem,” he remarked.

Reports of motor vehicles being damaged by bad gas spread across the island towards the end of 2014, into 2015, forcing the Government to step in and have the Bureau of Standards Jamaica carry out islandwide tests on the product at service stations, as well as their suppliers. Marketing companies refused to take blame, insisting that their storage facilities were not contaminated, while the dealers stood their ground, even as some pumps were ordered closed after supplies were found to be contaminated.

Retailers said the “bad gas” was inevitable, as for years they had been complaining to the Government about the many issues affecting the trade, both at the supplier and retail ends.

Speaking in the Sectoral debate last July, Minister of Science, Energy and Technology Dr Andrew Wheatley promised that new legislation and regulations were being developed to govern the sale of contaminated gas.

He said that existing laws are to be amended to strengthen the stewardship requirements for importing and distributing petroleum products, and that the licensing regime for all players in the sector would be made significantly stricter.