Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal is ques­tion­ing whether Op­po­si­tion MP Stu­art Young is at­tempt­ing to un­der­mine the coun­try and its en­er­gy sec­tor af­ter post­ing a pho­to with him­self and Venezuela’s Act­ing Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez.

But Young fired back, in­sist­ing he would nev­er act against the coun­try’s in­ter­ests, adding that he is a glob­al­ly re­spect­ed pro­fes­sion­al.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar on April 8 an­nounced that a diplo­mat­ic del­e­ga­tion will soon vis­it Venezuela to ad­vance Trinidad and To­ba­go’s oil and gas in­ter­ests through the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC).

How­ev­er, it is still un­cer­tain if there is a work­ing re­la­tion­ship be­tween Per­sad-Bisses­sar and the Venezue­lan leader. Venezuela’s Na­tion­al As­sem­bly unan­i­mous­ly de­clared the Prime Min­is­ter per­sona non gra­ta in Oc­to­ber 2025, ban­ning her from the coun­try af­ter she sup­port­ed US mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions in the re­gion.

In the pho­to with Young and Ro­driguez, the for­mer prime min­is­ter seem­ing­ly took a jab at Per­sad-Bisses­sar by putting the hash­tag “#per­son­agra­ta.”

While the Prime Min­is­ter laughed it off on Fri­day, yes­ter­day at the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ “Re­port to the Na­tion”, the En­er­gy Min­is­ter sought to take him to task.

“Stu­art Young and the PNM con­tin­ue to un­der­mine our na­tion­al in­ter­est. I am told that he was in Pana­ma. He got lost and end­ed up in Venezuela. Went there to un­der­mine Trinidad and To­ba­go and the multi­na­tion­al com­pa­nies.”

Mooni­lal asked Young to de­clare his agen­da and dis­close if it was an of­fi­cial trip or a per­son­al vis­it.

“Why was he there to un­der­mine Shell, BP, Trinidad and To­ba­go? He’s un­der­min­ing our in­ter­est. And to­day I call up­on him to cease dis­rupt­ing the ne­go­ti­a­tions, agree­ments, and dis­cus­sions be­tween our coun­tries and the multi­na­tion­al com­pa­nies to se­cure our en­er­gy fu­ture.”

But Young sought to as­sure Guardian Me­dia that he would nev­er at­tempt to hin­der this coun­try’s pros­per­i­ty.

The for­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter, who has had bi­lat­er­al dis­cus­sions with Ro­driguez in the past, said, “I would nev­er un­der­mine Trinidad and To­ba­go. I am a lawyer, and a well-re­spect­ed pro­fes­sion­al both re­gion­al­ly and glob­al­ly.”

Young said for months he has made the point that the UNC is not at the ne­go­ti­at­ing ta­ble with re­spect to cross-bor­der gas and that will be to the coun­try’s detri­ment.

“Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Mooni­lal have at­tacked Her Ex­cel­len­cy Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez re­lent­less­ly since 2018 to date with the most deroga­to­ry of terms. It is not sur­pris­ing that they would now try to shift fo­cus from their in­com­pe­tence and ‘per­sona non gra­ta sta­tus’ to me,” Young posit­ed.

He added, “They are use­less and com­plete­ly out of their depth, un­for­tu­nate­ly.”