Akash Sama­roo

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal is ac­cus­ing for­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young of at­tempt­ing to cre­ate “mis­chief” when he called on the Gov­ern­ment to fix what he de­scribed as a se­ri­ous over­sight in min­is­te­r­i­al as­sign­ments.

In a state­ment on his Face­book page yes­ter­day ti­tled Cau­tion for Trinidad and To­ba­go, Young ex­pressed alarm over the May 13, 2025, Gazette No­tice as­sign­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ties to Cab­i­net min­is­ters. He said it failed to ac­knowl­edge three key State en­er­gy com­pa­nies: Trinidad Pe­tro­le­um Hold­ings Lim­it­ed (TPHL), Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed, and Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed.

He said the three com­pa­nies, formed af­ter the re­struc­tur­ing of Petrotrin, as­sumed re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for sig­nif­i­cant fi­nan­cial oblig­a­tions, in­clud­ing the re­fi­nanc­ing of a US$850 mil­lion bond that was due in Au­gust 2019 and a sep­a­rate US$750 mil­lion bond.

“Hav­ing pe­rused the di­rec­tions and as­sign­ments of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to both the Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries and the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, it is clear that none of these en­ti­ties are con­sid­ered, iden­ti­fied or as­signed. TPHL, Her­itage and Paria are nowhere to be seen. The UNC Gov­ern­ment has failed to recog­nise the ex­is­tence of these com­pa­nies.”

Young said the omis­sion car­ried se­ri­ous le­gal and fi­nan­cial risks for the coun­try.

“If this is not im­me­di­ate­ly rec­ti­fied, it may re­sult in de­faults be­ing de­clared un­der the bond and loan agree­ments, it can al­so trig­ger law­suits based on con­trac­tu­al oblig­a­tions, it can al­so lead to an im­me­di­ate down­grad­ing of our sov­er­eign rat­ings. This would be dis­as­trous for Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

How­ev­er, UNC Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer (PRO) Dr Kirk Meighoo re­spond­ed via What­sApp a short while lat­er. He said those en­ti­ties were not in­clud­ed in the March 20, 2025, Gazette No­tice, which was sent for pub­li­ca­tion by the then PNM gov­ern­ment.

At­tach­ing a copy of the roles and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion as­signed to the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries, Meighoo con­tend­ed, “Stu­art Young put out a state­ment this morn­ing say­ing un­der him, Paria and Her­itage were gazetted. Here is Young’s Gazette as PM and En­er­gy Min­is­ter. Nowhere is Her­itage or Paria. It is the ex­act same list­ing as in the cur­rent Gazette.”

But Young re­spond­ed to Meighoo, again on his Face­book page. He said his ini­tial state­ment was not for ar­gu­men­ta­tive pur­pos­es but to point out an er­ror for Gov­ern­ment to ad­dress.

Young wrote, “Here is the UNC gov­ern­ment’s re­sponse, Kirk Meighoo mes­sag­ing qui­et­ly, be­hind the scenes to sell an ex­cuse. No trans­paren­cy and no ac­count­abil­i­ty.

“Fix it. To say that was done pre­vi­ous­ly is of no mo­ment, the point is en­sure an er­ror is cor­rect­ed.”

But En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal said there was no is­sue or threat to T&T.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Mooni­lal said Young seemed to have a lot of time on his hands.

“I can as­sure him that it is safe for him to re­turn to the frol­ic on the beach, all is well. It is the ex­act sched­ule, there’s no dif­fer­ence. So the min­is­ter shout­ing now about the risk, the fi­nan­cial arrange­ments and the in­ter­na­tion­al bank­ing com­mu­ni­ty and so on, this is just mis­chief be­cause there’s no risk. There was nev­er any mis­take,” Mooni­lal said.

On Wednes­day, Guardian Me­dia re­vealed that the doc­u­ments sent by the Gov­ern­ment to be gazetted con­tained er­rors and amend­ments were re­quired.