An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers

@guardian.co.tt

Dr Thack­wray “Dax” Dri­ver will step down as pres­i­dent and CEO of the En­er­gy Cham­ber of Trinidad & To­ba­go on March 31, 2026, end­ing a 24-year tenure with the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, Dri­ver said, “It has been a priv­i­lege to lead the En­er­gy Cham­ber and to serve its mem­ber­ship over the years. I am proud of what the or­gan­i­sa­tion has achieved and con­fi­dent that it is well-po­si­tioned to con­tin­ue sup­port­ing the de­vel­op­ment of the en­er­gy sec­tor and the wider re­gion. I thank the board, staff, and mem­bers for their sup­port.”

Chair of the En­er­gy Cham­ber, Mala Bali­raj, ex­pressed grat­i­tude for Dr Dri­ver’s lead­er­ship, not­ing his con­tri­bu­tions dur­ing a pe­ri­od of sig­nif­i­cant change in the en­er­gy sec­tor. “His work im­pact­ed the en­tire en­er­gy in­dus­try across the sup­ply and val­ue chain, and his com­mit­ment to safe op­er­a­tions is a hall­mark of his lega­cy. We wish him well in his next chap­ter,” Bali­raj said.

The cham­ber plans to re­view its strate­gic pri­or­i­ties and core ac­tiv­i­ties in light of the lead­er­ship change and will launch a re­cruit­ment process for a new CEO. An in­ter­im leader will be ap­point­ed dur­ing the tran­si­tion to en­sure con­ti­nu­ity of op­er­a­tions.

Dri­ver’s an­nounce­ment fol­lows a pe­ri­od of height­ened pub­lic at­ten­tion on the cham­ber’s role in the en­er­gy sec­tor. Last month, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar crit­i­cised the or­gan­i­sa­tion for favour­ing for­eign multi­na­tion­als and se­lect spe­cial in­ter­est groups while sidelin­ing lo­cal con­trac­tors and State-owned en­er­gy com­pa­nies.
“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 in re­sponse to ques­tions about her par­tic­i­pa­tion in the En­er­gy Con­fer­ence 2026.

In her open­ing re­marks at the con­fer­ence, Bali­raj ad­dressed con­cerns that the cham­ber had be­come an elit­ist body dom­i­nat­ed by multi­na­tion­als. She ac­knowl­edged feed­back that the STOW pro­gramme, aimed at sup­port­ing train­ing and work­force de­vel­op­ment, had cre­at­ed bar­ri­ers for small­er con­trac­tors.

“We have lis­tened to the mes­sage in the spir­it of con­struc­tive feed­back. We are com­mit­ted to a col­lab­o­ra­tive ap­proach to repo­si­tion this space,” she told del­e­gates at the Hy­att Re­gency.

Bali­raj al­so em­pha­sised that the Cham­ber’s 400-mem­ber base in­cludes or­gan­i­sa­tions across the eco­nom­ic spec­trum, from glob­al cor­po­ra­tions to mi­cro-en­ter­pris­es. The Prime Min­is­ter has since said she will ob­serve the Cham­ber’s ac­tions in the com­ing months be­fore en­gag­ing fur­ther.