RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal says Trinidad and To­ba­go’s crit­i­cal en­er­gy in­fra­struc­ture re­mains se­cure de­spite ris­ing glob­al ten­sions and the re­cent re­moval of a Unit­ed States radar sys­tem and mil­i­tary per­son­nel from To­ba­go.

The sit­u­a­tion comes amid es­ca­lat­ing ten­sions in the Mid­dle East in­volv­ing the Unit­ed States, Is­rael and Iran—de­vel­op­ments that have height­ened con­cerns about en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty, po­ten­tial sup­ply dis­rup­tions and the risk of a wider con­flict.

Speak­ing with re­porters on Mon­day evening at the Debe Is­lam­ic As­so­ci­a­tion masjid fol­low­ing the break­ing of the Ra­madan fast (if­tar), Mooni­lal said the Gov­ern­ment has al­ready tak­en steps to safe­guard both off­shore and on­shore en­er­gy fa­cil­i­ties.

Ear­li­er this year, amid re­gion­al ten­sions be­tween the US and Venezuela, for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley had raised con­cerns about the coun­try’s lev­el of pre­pared­ness and the pro­tec­tion of key en­er­gy in­stal­la­tions.

While US radar sys­tems have re­port­ed­ly come un­der at­tack in the Mid­dle East, Mooni­lal main­tained that broad­er na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty is­sues do not fall with­in his re­mit, di­rect­ing such mat­ters to De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge and the Prime Min­is­ter, who chairs the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil.

“Mat­ters in­volv­ing na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, as you know, are not un­der my purview. Those are mat­ters that Min­is­ter of De­fence Wayne Sturge and, of course, the Prime Min­is­ter, chair­man of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, may ad­dress, de­pend­ing on the na­ture of those is­sues. So I pre­fer not to com­ment on that as well,” he said when asked whether the radar’s re­moval was linked to de­vel­op­ments in the Mid­dle East.

How­ev­er, the En­er­gy Min­is­ter said he has held di­rect dis­cus­sions with the De­fence Min­istry on mat­ters re­lat­ed to safe­guard­ing the coun­try’s en­er­gy sec­tor.

“But what I can say is that I’ve met with Min­is­ter Sturge to dis­cuss en­er­gy sec­tor se­cu­ri­ty. As you know, we have in­stal­la­tions in the Gulf, as well as off­shore and on­shore—crit­i­cal en­er­gy in­fra­struc­ture,” Mooni­lal said.

He added that the Gov­ern­ment has al­so en­gaged ma­jor en­er­gy stake­hold­ers, in­clud­ing multi­na­tion­al com­pa­nies op­er­at­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go, to as­sess their se­cu­ri­ty pre­pared­ness.

“We have met with the multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions con­cern­ing their se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures and their state of readi­ness in terms of po­ten­tial threats,” he said.

Mooni­lal ex­plained that these en­gage­ments form part of on­go­ing dis­cus­sions with US-based and oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al firms with in­vest­ments in the lo­cal en­er­gy sec­tor, par­tic­u­lar­ly at a time of height­ened geopo­lit­i­cal in­sta­bil­i­ty.

“And we are as­sured that all is in place to se­cure all our en­er­gy in­stal­la­tions off­shore in our mar­itime space and on­shore,” he added.

He de­clined to com­ment fur­ther on the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the re­moval of the US mil­i­tary radar sys­tem from To­ba­go, again stress­ing that such mat­ters fall un­der the De­fence Min­istry and the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter.

“That’s as far as I go with the se­cu­ri­ty is­sues. The oth­er mat­ters, of course, of radar and so on, are for Min­is­ter Sturge and the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter,” he said.

The mil­i­tary-grade radar, pre­vi­ous­ly sta­tioned near the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port in Crown Point, has been dis­man­tled and re­moved from the site where it had op­er­at­ed since late last year.

The US radar—iden­ti­fied as the AN/TPS-80 G/ATOR sys­tem—was de­ployed un­der a bi­lat­er­al se­cu­ri­ty arrange­ment be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Unit­ed States to en­hance re­gion­al sur­veil­lance and track drug-traf­fick­ing routes across the Caribbean, par­tic­u­lar­ly those linked to Venezuela.

Dur­ing his vis­it, Mooni­lal par­tic­i­pat­ed in a sym­bol­ic ges­ture at the mosque, as­sist­ing with mi­nor elec­tri­cal work be­fore switch­ing on the lights at the fa­cil­i­ty. He was lat­er pre­sent­ed with a to­ken of ap­pre­ci­a­tion by Imam Ma­sood Mo­hammed.