Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) ac­tivist De­vant Ma­haraj has been giv­en the green light to pur­sue a law­suit against the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC) over its re­fusal to dis­close de­tails of this coun­try’s Drag­on Field gas deal with Venezuela.

Dur­ing a hear­ing at the San Fer­nan­do High Court last Fri­day, Jus­tice Mi­ra Dean-Ar­mour­er grant­ed leave to Ma­haraj to pur­sue his ju­di­cial re­view case af­ter rul­ing that he had pre­sent­ed a valid claim with a rea­son­able prospect of suc­cess.

In the ap­pli­ca­tion be­fore Dean-Ar­mour­er, Ma­haraj’s lawyers sought to out­line the rea­sons for his de­ci­sion to seek de­tails of the deal through a Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act (FOIA) ap­pli­ca­tion made in De­cem­ber last year.

“Based on the re­ports in the me­dia, and the lack of in­for­ma­tion sur­round­ing the pro­cure­ment process that led to this agree­ment be­ing fi­nalised, the ap­pli­cant, be­came deeply con­cerned with this de­ci­sion tak­en by the Gov­ern­ment of T&T, with­out any pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion, which will see a large, yet to be quan­ti­fied sum of tax­pay­ers’ dol­lars be­ing used for the con­struc­tion of this pipeline,” Ma­haraj’s lawyers said in the ap­pli­ca­tion.

They quot­ed from nu­mer­ous lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al news re­ports on the deal and the cur­rent eco­nom­ic and po­lit­i­cal tur­moil in Venezuela.

“The events which are doc­u­ment­ed in the var­i­ous ar­ti­cles, cor­re­spon­dence and Ma­haraj’s af­fi­davit, have giv­en rise to le­git­i­mate and jus­ti­fied con­cerns about the in­ef­fi­cien­cy, in­com­pe­tence and a lack of trans­paren­cy in the en­tire gas deal,” they said.

In the law­suit, Ma­haraj’s lawyers are con­tend­ing that NGC did not prop­er­ly bal­ance the pub­lic’s in­ter­est in pro­vid­ing and with­hold­ing the in­for­ma­tion un­der the FOIA, in its cur­rent form.

“The NGC has not con­sid­ered or pur­port­ed to con­sid­er any ben­e­fits of dis­clo­sure, to show that the bal­anc­ing act was per­formed,” they stat­ed.

Through the law­suit, Ma­haraj is seek­ing copies of the agree­ment be­tween T&T, the NGC, Venezuela and its State-owned gas com­pa­ny Petroleos de Venezuela SA; de­tails of the pro­ce­dure used to ne­go­ti­ate and fi­nalise the deal; and the cost per unit T&T is re­quired to pay for the Venezue­lan gas once the bil­lion-dol­lar pipeline is com­plet­ed.

“Once his re­search in­to these mat­ters is com­plete, the ap­pli­cant can re­fer his find­ings to the Op­po­si­tion par­ty who will be able to bring it to the fore­front by rais­ing those find­ings in the me­dia, on so­cial me­dia, via his blogs and the Par­lia­ment and oth­er pub­lic fo­rums in or­der to keep the Gov­ern­ment in check,” his lawyers said.

Ma­haraj’s law­suit comes less than a month af­ter an­oth­er UNC ac­tivist, Ravi Bal­go­b­in-Ma­haraj (no re­la­tion), won an ap­peal in the Privy Coun­cil against Petrotrin’s re­fusal to dis­close doc­u­ments re­lat­ed to its de­ci­sion to dis­con­tin­ue its law­suit against its for­mer ex­ec­u­tive chair­man Mal­colm Jones over the com­pa­ny’s failed World Gas To Liq­uids plant. Bal­go­b­in-Ma­haraj’s claim was based on sim­i­lar pub­lic in­ter­est grounds to those raised by Ma­haraj in his claim against the NGC.

The law­suit al­so comes as the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al is seek­ing to amend the FOIA to ex­tend the time pe­ri­od for a pub­lic body to re­spond to an ap­pli­ca­tion, from 30 days to 90 days. The amend­ment al­so re­quires that the pub­lic body con­sults with the AG’s Of­fice be­fore turn­ing down a re­quest. The Par­lia­men­tary de­bate of the amend­ment kicked off yes­ter­day, amid pub­lic crit­i­cism over the ef­fect on cit­i­zens’ abil­i­ty to pur­sue ju­di­cial re­view ap­pli­ca­tions in cas­es where ap­pli­ca­tions are re­fused.

Ma­haraj is be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al, Jared Ja­groo and Che Din­di­al.

About the Drag­on Gas Deal

The deal was signed be­tween Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro in Au­gust last year. The agree­ment re­lates to con­struc­tion of a 17-kilo­me­tre pipeline be­tween Venezuela’s Drag­on Gas Field and the Hi­bis­cus plat­form, lo­cat­ed off Trinidad’s north-west coast. The plat­form is joint­ly owned by the NGC and Shell, who will al­so share the cost of the pipeline.

Once op­er­a­tional, the pipeline is ex­pect­ed to de­liv­er 150 mil­lion cu­bic feet of nat­ur­al gas per day, with the fig­ure ex­pect­ed to dou­ble with­in some years.

At the time when the deal was struck, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert es­ti­mat­ed the cost at ap­prox­i­mate­ly US$1 bil­lion.

Row­ley re­fused to di­vulge de­tails of the “con­fi­den­tial” deal in­clud­ing the agreed-up­on rate for the gas, which he mere­ly de­scribed as com­pet­i­tive.

The deal is ex­pect­ed to boost the gas sup­ply to the lo­cal Liqui­fied Nat­ur­al Gas (LNG) and petro­chem­i­cal sec­tors, once the pipeline com­plet­ed on sched­ule, next year.