Michelle Loubon

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Tim Gopeesingh says T&T stands to lose about $20 mil­lion in Petrotrin. He was re­spond­ing to Point Fortin MP Paula Gopee-Scoon's ac­cu­sa­tions that the Gov­ern­ment was mis­man­ag­ing the en­er­gy sec­tor, in­di­cat­ed in her con­tri­bu­tion at the sit­ting of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, on Fri­day. He re­butted that the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship had "done work in the en­er­gy sec­tor". He ac­cused the PNM of not hav­ing any en­er­gy pol­i­cy. De­scrib­ing Gopee-Scoon as an "ex­pert on the en­er­gy sec­tor since she lives in Point Fortin," Gopeesingh spoke about the debt owed by Petrotrin to World GTL-a tech­nol­o­gy gas-to-liq­uids project de­vel­op­er.

Gopeesingh said: "They (PNM) brought in World GTL. They bor­rowed al­most $12 bil­lion at six per cent in­ter­est and nine per cent. Petrotrin still owes close to ten mil­lion dol­lars. Petrotrin is be­ing sued for an­oth­er $10 mil­lion. If the case is ad­ju­di­cat­ed, we will have to pay an­oth­er $10 mil­lion. The coun­try has to suf­fer the pos­si­ble loss of an­oth­er $20 mil­lion." He said the mon­ey spent on World GTL could have gone to as­sist in Trin­mar with in­creased re­cov­ery. Gopeesingh said: "Trin­mar was do­ing bet­ter. It was the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship to bring it from 19,000 to 23,000 bar­rels and go­ing well."

'It's Govt's du­ty to ed­u­cate peo­ple'

Quot­ing South Amer­i­can free­dom fight­er Si­mon Bo­li­var, Gopeesingh said: "the first du­ty of a gov­ern­ment is to give ed­u­ca­tion to a peo­ple. No oth­er in­vest­ment yields a greater re­turn as the in­vest­ment in ed­u­ca­tion. An ed­u­cat­ed cit­i­zen­ry is the foun­da­tion of every econ­o­my and the foun­da­tion of every so­ci­ety." He paid ku­dos to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Fi­nance Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an for in­ject­ing $8.7 bil­lion in­to Ed­u­ca­tion and Train­ing in the Bud­get.

Gopeesingh said: "The PM en­sured ed­u­ca­tion got more than $8 bil­lion in 2010. It got close to 20 per cent of the an­nu­al ex­pen­di­ture and close to six per cent of the GDP. In the de­vel­oped coun­tries of US and Great Britain, about 16 to 18 per cent of the an­nu­al ex­pen­di­ture is on ed­u­ca­tion. In de­vel­oped coun­tries the amount ranges to four and five per cent of the GDP." He paid ku­dos to AS­JA Girls' Sec­ondary School teacher An­noush­ka Ish­mael for plac­ing sec­ond in the "ex­tend­ed learn­ing be­yond the class room" cat­e­go­ry for her project en­ti­tled "Ed­u­cat­ed Girls, Em­pow­ered Women."