Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young should have stayed at home to su­per­vise his min­istry’s Venezue­lan mi­grant reg­is­tra­tion ex­er­cise this week rather than ac­com­pa­ny Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley on his cur­rent over­seas trip.

So said Op­po­si­tion MP Roodal Mooni­lal yes­ter­day, fol­low­ing word that Young—who’s al­so Min­is­ter in the PM’s Of­fice—was among Gov­ern­ment’s del­e­ga­tion which left yes­ter­day with Row­ley on his over­seas trip. They’re head­ed for en­er­gy sec­tor talks in Hol­land, Lon­don and the Unit­ed States. Al­so in the del­e­ga­tion are Min­is­ter in Fi­nance Allyson West and En­er­gy Min­is­ter Franklin Khan, the Of­fice of the PM con­firmed.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert will act as Prime Min­is­ter in Row­ley’s ab­sence.

Last week, Row­ley said the trip would be for 10 days but the OPM’s re­lease yes­ter­day didn’t give a re­turn date. The team left for Hol­land via Lon­don yes­ter­day.

Row­ley said last week that con­tracts are ex­pect­ed to be signed with Shell in Hol­land. The PM has been in­vit­ed to meet Shell’s CEO fol­lows re­cent ne­go­ti­a­tions with Shell.

The team next goes to Lon­don to meet BP ex­ec­u­tives and EOG Re­sources. Row­ley will al­so meet with T&T na­tion­als while in Lon­don next week­end.

Dur­ing re­cent Par­lia­men­tary de­bate where prob­lems with BP’s nat­ur­al gas sup­ply fig­ured, Row­ley said that is­sue brought Gov­ern­ment to “the whole ques­tion of what’s hap­pen­ing with our mar­gin­al fields.” He not­ed a May re­port on the eval­u­a­tion of T&T’s mar­gin­al fields, sent to his Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary. That showed Gov­ern­ment’s work on the mar­gin­al fields, in­clud­ing a ta­ble on “BP’s Small Pool Re­serves,” plus a tech­ni­cal sum­ma­ry.

“... This puts us in a po­si­tion to talk to BP about the fu­ture of these mar­gin­al fields,” he’d added.

En route back home, the del­e­ga­tion will vis­it Hous­ton to meet Shell tech­nocrats.

The OPM’s re­lease didn’t state who’ll act for Young. Gov­ern­ment sources said for­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter, now Hous­ing min­is­ter Ed­mund Dil­lon - who’s act­ed as Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter re­cent­ly - may act.

How­ev­er, Mooni­lal not­ed that the Venezue­lan amnesty reg­is­tra­tion ex­er­cise to be pi­lot­ed by Young’s min­istry will be launched on Fri­day and con­tin­ue for two weeks. It’s geared to as­cer­tain how many Venezue­lans are in T&T and of­fer a one-year work clear­ance.

“It’s ob­scene that the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter ab­sconds on the eve of this ex­er­cise which has nev­er been at­tempt­ed and with crime on the as­cent. In fact, it seems he may be away for most of the ex­er­cise. But rather than globe-trot­ting with the PM for en­er­gy is­sues - on which he has no re­spon­si­bil­i­ty - he should have stayed home and han­dled his own Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty work and an­swered all the queries which will flow from this ex­er­cise,” Mooni­lal said.

“Some Venezue­lans may have no fixed ad­dress to give, so if peo­ple go to look for them at an ad­dress they put, it may be false. They may have no IDs and names may be false - how will the ex­er­cise suc­ceed? Al­so, with the new ‘res­i­dents’ we may need bilin­gual po­lice to keep or­der in T&T. Has the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter ad­dressed this? But since Min­is­ter Young has gone, he ought not to re­turn...”