An in­de­pen­dent com­mit­tee will be ap­point­ed to de­ter­mine why a ma­jor pow­er out­age oc­curred on Wednes­day 16 Feb­ru­ary 2022 and ex­am­ine the na­tion­al re­sponse to the event.  It is ex­pect­ed to sub­mit its re­port in one month.

Con­fir­ma­tion came in Par­lia­ment this af­ter­noon from Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Colm Im­bert, who made the state­ment on be­half of the Prime Min­is­ter.

The fol­low­ing is the state­ment made by Min­is­ter Im­bert to the Par­lia­ment…

Madam Speak­er,

I am au­tho­rised by the Cab­i­net to make this state­ment on be­half of the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter on the es­tab­lish­ment of an in­de­pen­dent ex­pert com­mit­tee to in­ves­ti­gate the cause of, and na­tion­al re­sponse to, the na­tion­wide pow­er out­age on Wednes­day Feb­ru­ary 16, 2022.

Con­trary to state­ments made in the pub­lic do­main by per­sons who should know bet­ter, over the last twelve (12) years, there have been a num­ber of ma­jor elec­tric­i­ty pow­er out­ages in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

We all re­mem­ber on­ly too vivid­ly the na­tion­wide pow­er out­age that oc­curred nine (9) years ago on the night of March 29, 2013, un­der a pre­vi­ous Gov­ern­ment.

In that 2013 in­ci­dent, since the main gen­er­at­ing ca­pac­i­ty is lo­cat­ed in the deep south, it took up to eigh­teen (18) hours for elec­tric­i­ty to be re­stored in sev­er­al ar­eas of the coun­try, such as north­west Trinidad. That 2013 black­out and its af­ter­math at­tract­ed in­ter­na­tion­al at­ten­tion and was wide­ly fea­tured in the for­eign news me­dia, in­clud­ing the Wash­ing­ton Post, New York Times, Tam­pa Tri­bune and Mi­a­mi Her­ald But that 2013 out­age was not the on­ly one that oc­curred dur­ing that pe­ri­od.

In De­cem­ber 2012, a black­out along the en­tire north-west of Trinidad stumped Christ­mas shop­ping.

In Au­gust 2011, light­ning struck T&TEC’s Bam­boo sub­sta­tion in Val­sayn, and pow­er out­ages oc­curred in north, cen­tral and east Trinidad.

In Ju­ly 2010, light­ning struck a Pow­er­Gen pow­er sta­tion dur­ing heavy rains, caus­ing black­outs in sev­er­al parts of Trinidad. The in­ci­dent caused sev­en gen­er­a­tors to trip at the Point Lisas fa­cil­i­ty, af­fect­ing ar­eas in Point Fortin, Fyz­abad, San­ta Flo­ra and sur­round­ing ar­eas.

Wednes­day’s na­tion­wide out­age re­sult­ed in loss of pow­er to sev­er­al ar­eas in north Trinidad for up to twelve (12) hours, al­though sev­er­al ar­eas in the south got their sup­ply back with­in five (5) hours. How­ev­er, To­ba­go, which has its own sup­ply, was not af­fect­ed.

Notwith­stand­ing the fact that there have been sev­er­al ma­jor pow­er out­ages in Trinidad be­fore, the Gov­ern­ment con­sid­ers this week’s out­age to be a very se­ri­ous mat­ter which re­quires im­me­di­ate in­de­pen­dent and ex­pert in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

As a con­se­quence, I wish to an­nounce that the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter has ap­point­ed a three (3) man Spe­cial­ist Team to thor­ough­ly in­ves­ti­gate and de­ter­mine the caus­es of, and na­tion­al re­sponse to, the na­tion­wide elec­tric­i­ty pow­er out­age that oc­curred on Wednes­day Feb­ru­ary 16, 2022 and to make rec­om­men­da­tions to pre­vent a re­cur­rence of such an event.

The Team will be head­ed by re­tired Pro­fes­sor of Elec­tri­cal En­gi­neer­ing, Chan­drab­han Shar­ma, PhD.

Pro­fes­sor Shar­ma joined UWI in 1986. He re­ceived his B.Sc. (Elect. Eng.) from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies in 1979, M.Sc. from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies in 1982 and his Ph.D. al­so from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies in 1993. Dr. Shar­ma's re­search in­ter­ests are in the ar­eas of En­er­gy Sys­tems and En­er­gy Eco­nom­ics. He is an ac­knowl­edged ex­pert in elec­tri­cal en­gi­neer­ing, with over 40 years’ ex­pe­ri­ence in the field, spe­cial­is­ing in elec­tri­cal pow­er, among oth­er re­lat­ed ar­eas.

The sec­ond mem­ber of the Team is Mr. Kei­th Sir­ju, a dis­tin­guished Struc­tur­al En­gi­neer and re­tired UWI Lec­tur­er, with Mas­ter’s and Bach­e­lor’s de­grees in Civ­il En­gi­neer­ing and 50 years’ ex­pe­ri­ence in en­gi­neer­ing. He is al­so a for­mer Chair­man of TTEC.

The third mem­ber of the Team is act­ing Su­per­in­ten­dent Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro, a se­nior po­lice of­fi­cer, cur­rent­ly as­signed to the Spe­cial Branch, with 25 years’ ex­pe­ri­ence in polic­ing.

His man­date will be to ex­am­ine all na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty mat­ters as­so­ci­at­ed with, and aris­ing from, the pow­er out­age.

The Team will be em­pow­ered to co-opt any oth­er ex­per­tise and re­sources that it re­quires and is ex­pect­ed to re­port with one (1) month.