Rubis, a key player in the petroleum industry, has come in for high praise from Minister of Small Business, Entrepreneurship and Commerce, Dwight Sutherland.
Minister Sutherland, who was paying a courtesy call on Rubis Eastern Caribbean SRL at its headquarters at One Rubis Plaza, Welches, St. James, said the company had been playing its part in building out this island’s economy, since setting up here in 2011.
He noted this was with respect to the level of commerce and employment it would have provided for people in this country.
Commending its management, Mr. Sutherland said: “Rubis has direct employment levels of some 100, but … Rubis accounts for some 400 indirect employees in this country and that is significant employment levels that Rubis would have generated in this country over the last seven years…. This speaks to small business and entrepreneurship, indeed with respect to the service stations and the auto marts.
The meeting was another in the series of stakeholders’ engagement by the minister and a team of officials, whose aim was to recognize the efforts of those helping to build out the “economy as it relates to the micro, small and medium enterprise sector and investment as a whole”.
While further acknowledging Rubis for engaging in “significant commerce”, Mr. Sutherland noted that it had provided opportunities to some small businesses and entrepreneurs to operate their convenience stores, and lauded the recent partnership at Holetown with Burger King.
“Indeed that is what we call commerce at its best and that is what we call a business partnership,” he said.
The Commerce Minister also expressed his satisfaction with Rubis’ level of compliance.
“I want to congratulate Rubis for adhering to our weights and measures regulation … and being compliant with our requirements to have biannual calibrations done and indeed verifications done at their pumps. Rubis has engaged in digital technology to ensure that their pumps are indeed calibrated,” Mr. Sutherland stated.
The Minister also noted that that Barbados was moving to repeal and replace its Weights and Measurement Act with a new Metrology Act, which gives more accuracy, as it relates to the International Standard Organization (ISO) regulations.
He lauded Rubis for already signalling they had put everything in place to ensure that accuracy, in terms of verification and calibrations, was maintained at the pump.