KE­JAN HAYNES

Lead Ed­i­tor – News­gath­er­ing

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal has ac­cused the Op­po­si­tion of hypocrisy over their crit­i­cism of the gov­ern­ment’s new OFAC li­cence for the Drag­on gas project, say­ing the coun­try is now on a “vi­able path­way” to pro­duc­tion.

Speak­ing out­side Par­lia­ment this af­ter­noon, Mooni­lal said it was “the height of hypocrisy and shame­less­ness” for for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and for­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter Stu­art Young to ques­tion the li­cence, since un­der their ad­min­is­tra­tion “we had to go through Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion to find a copy of theirs.”

He said when the UNC took of­fice, the pre­vi­ous li­cence had al­ready been re­voked and the project was “dead on ar­rival.” The new six-month li­cence, he said, al­lows for ne­go­ti­a­tions and trans­ac­tions “in the best in­ter­est of all stake­hold­ers.”

Mooni­lal al­so re­vealed that his min­istry has no Eng­lish ver­sion of the for­mer gov­ern­ment’s li­cence. “To this day, we have ab­solute­ly no doc­u­ment in Eng­lish,” he said. “I’ve asked the min­istry to pro­cure a trans­la­tion so we can find out what they agreed to.”

Asked whether ac­knowl­edg­ing Nicolás Maduro as Venezuela’s pres­i­dent formed part of the dis­cus­sions, Mooni­lal said that is­sue “does not arise at this time.”

He urged Row­ley and Young to “stay away from this mat­ter and don’t com­pli­cate it with mis­chief or fake news.”