Sto­ries by An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has launched a scathing at­tack on the En­er­gy Cham­ber of Trinidad and To­ba­go, ac­cus­ing it of serv­ing the in­ter­ests of for­eign multi­na­tion­als and nar­row spe­cial in­ter­ests while un­der­min­ing lo­cal con­trac­tors and State-owned en­er­gy com­pa­nies.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar made the com­ment in re­sponse to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia on whether she had been in­vit­ed to speak at the En­er­gy Con­fer­ence and if a di­rec­tive had been is­sued for State en­er­gy com­pa­nies to with­draw their spon­sor­ship or par­tic­i­pa­tion. She made it clear she has no in­ter­est in en­gag­ing with the cur­rent En­er­gy Cham­ber, de­scrib­ing it as un­rep­re­sen­ta­tive, self-serv­ing and harm­ful to na­tion­al in­ter­ests.

“The cur­rent En­er­gy Cham­ber is struc­tured to on­ly serve the pri­or­i­ties of the for­eign multi­na­tion­als and se­lect lo­cal spe­cial in­ter­est groups. I do not be­lieve that the cur­rent En­er­gy Cham­ber rep­re­sents and ad­vo­cates for the best in­ter­ests of our State-owned com­pa­nies and our lo­cal busi­ness­es and con­trac­tors,” the Prime Min­is­ter said.

She went fur­ther, ac­cus­ing the cham­ber of con­duct that has worked against cit­i­zens and the coun­try’s de­vel­op­ment.

“Quite frankly, I think they are self-serv­ing, greedy and have act­ed in a detri­men­tal man­ner to­wards cit­i­zens and the coun­try,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

A cen­tral is­sue raised by the Prime Min­is­ter was the Safe to Work in Trinidad and To­ba­go (STOW) cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. She said State en­er­gy com­pa­nies have a man­date to re­move STOW cer­ti­fi­ca­tion as a pre­req­ui­site for qual­i­fy­ing for work, but ac­cused the En­er­gy Cham­ber of weapon­is­ing the sys­tem to ad­vance its own in­ter­ests.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar stressed that STOW cer­ti­fi­ca­tion was used to ex­tract mon­ey from small busi­ness­es and con­trac­tors, plac­ing an un­fair bur­den on lo­cal en­ter­pris­es try­ing to op­er­ate in the en­er­gy sec­tor.

“It’s a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic coun­try. They are free to have their con­fer­ence, but I have ab­solute­ly no in­ter­est in work­ing with them,” she re­vealed.

The PM did con­firm that she was in­vit­ed by the cham­ber on June 24, 2025, to be the fea­tured speak­er at the con­fer­ence, but did not an­swer ques­tions on why she did not re­spond.

She al­so con­firmed that En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal was in­vit­ed to at­tend.

Sources told Guardian Me­dia that Mooni­lal was ex­pect­ed to be a keynote speak­er. How­ev­er, he re­spond­ed to tell the or­gan­is­ers he could not at­tend. Plan­ning Eco­nom­ic and Af­fairs De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Dr Kennedy Swarats­ingh was al­so pre­vi­ous­ly on the agen­da to speak. How­ev­er, sources said he lat­er de­clined.

Sev­er­al speak­ers from the re­gion and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly are on the cham­ber’s agen­da to speak, in­clud­ing Suri­name’s En­er­gy Min­is­ter.

When asked di­rect­ly yes­ter­day whether State-owned en­ti­ties such as the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny, Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um, Paria Fu­el Trad­ing and the En­er­gy Min­istry had pulled out of the con­fer­ence, the Prime Min­is­ter ques­tioned why pub­lic funds should be used to sup­port the cham­ber’s event.

“If the En­er­gy Cham­ber wants to have a con­fer­ence, they should pay for it. Why should State com­pa­nies pay for them to go eat and drink in the Hy­att?” she asked.

She added that the cham­ber should in­stead use funds col­lect­ed through STOW cer­ti­fi­ca­tion to fi­nance its own ac­tiv­i­ties.

“Let them use some of their STOW mon­ey that they ex­tract­ed from small busi­ness­es and con­trac­tors to pay for it,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that NGC, in pre­vi­ous years, had been a plat­inum spon­sor and spent $600,000 in con­tri­bu­tions to the event.

The Prime Min­is­ter’s com­ments are, how­ev­er, con­sis­tent with her po­si­tion while in Op­po­si­tion. In Oc­to­ber 2024, fol­low­ing the En­er­gy Cham­ber’s an­nu­al gen­er­al meet­ing, Per­sad-Bisses­sar pub­licly crit­i­cised the or­gan­i­sa­tion dur­ing the bud­get de­bate. At the time, she said the cham­ber’s struc­ture favoured for­eign multi­na­tion­als and se­lect lo­cal in­ter­ests, and that her com­ments were dri­ven by com­plaints from mi­cro, small and medi­um-sized en­ter­pris­es in the en­er­gy sec­tor.

“I made my com­ments in the bud­get de­bate af­ter re­ceiv­ing many re­quests and com­plaints from our lo­cal en­er­gy sec­tor mi­cro, small and medi­um en­ter­pris­es. I stand by every­thing I said in the bud­get de­bate re­gard­ing the En­er­gy Cham­ber and my plans for the cre­ation of new rep­re­sen­ta­tive or­gan­i­sa­tions and changes to safe­ty stan­dards,” she said then. Now, as Prime Min­is­ter, she has re­it­er­at­ed that po­si­tion, sig­nalling a clear break be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and the En­er­gy Cham­ber un­der its cur­rent man­age­ment.

The sharp ex­change has in­ten­si­fied de­bate over who rep­re­sents the en­er­gy sec­tor, the role of safe­ty cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, and how State re­sources should be used, with the Prime Min­is­ter draw­ing a firm line be­tween her Gov­ern­ment and the En­er­gy Cham­ber as it cur­rent­ly op­er­ates.

Cham­ber re­sponds

In re­sponse, how­ev­er, the En­er­gy Cham­ber, head­ed by CEO Dr Thack­wray Dri­ver, re­ject­ed the Prime Min­is­ter’s char­ac­ter­i­sa­tion and de­fend­ed its role with­in the sec­tor.

In a state­ment, the cham­ber said the En­er­gy Con­fer­ence serves as a fo­rum for in­dus­try-wide en­gage­ment and na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.

“The En­er­gy Con­fer­ence has al­ways served as a fo­rum where all in­dus­try play­ers can come to­geth­er to ex­change views and to fur­ther the sec­tor’s de­vel­op­ment in the na­tion­al in­ter­est. We are pro-growth and pro-Trinidad and To­ba­go,” the cham­ber said.

It added that the in­vi­ta­tion re­mains open to the Gov­ern­ment to par­tic­i­pate in the con­fer­ence.

“As al­ways, the in­vi­ta­tion re­mains open to the Gov­ern­ment to bring their im­por­tant voice and con­sid­er­able ex­per­tise to the dis­cus­sion next week. We are open to hear­ing all views, and en­gage pos­i­tive­ly to ad­dress any con­cerns,” the state­ment said.

The cham­ber al­so pushed back against claims that it on­ly rep­re­sents multi­na­tion­al in­ter­ests, point­ing to the breadth of its mem­ber­ship.

“The En­er­gy Cham­ber of Trinidad and To­ba­go is a broad-based mem­ber­ship or­gan­i­sa­tion com­pris­ing over 400 com­pa­nies across the lo­cal, re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al en­er­gy val­ue chain, in­clud­ing many Trinidad and To­ba­go-owned busi­ness­es, con­trac­tors, and ser­vice providers,” it said. Ac­cord­ing to the cham­ber, its mem­ber­ship spans large multi­na­tion­als with ma­jor up­stream and down­stream op­er­a­tions, as well as small in­dige­nous ser­vice providers sup­port­ing op­er­a­tions in South Trinidad. It said that over its 70-year his­to­ry, it has con­sis­tent­ly sought to pro­vide a bal­anced per­spec­tive on the sec­tor and to work with gov­ern­ments to sup­port growth and na­tion­al pros­per­i­ty.

“Our pur­pose is, and al­ways has been, to work with the gov­ern­ment of the day in or­der to cre­ate the best con­di­tions to en­sure the growth of this sec­tor, which sits at the heart of T&T’s con­tin­ued pros­per­i­ty,” the cham­ber said.