Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Jour­nal­ist

joshua.seemu­n­gal

@guardian.co.tt

The Op­po­si­tion wants chair­man of the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee on Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Kei­th Scot­land, to sum­mon mem­bers of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion to ex­plain the process by which Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Cristo­pher was ap­point­ed.

Oropouche East MP Roodal Mooni­lal said the op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) plans to write a stern let­ter to Scot­land as there are many ques­tions to be an­swered.

“The Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion must be hauled be­fore a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee to bring their as­sess­ment, their re­port card and let us see what was the re­sult of all the process­es—who ranked first, sec­ond, third —that they ar­rived at Er­la Hare­wood-Cristo­pher,” Mooni­lal said.

“Er­la Cristo­pher didn’t take a taxi and go to the Com­mis­sion­er’s of­fice, you know. She was put there by the PSC mak­ing that rec­om­men­da­tion.”

“We are in­formed in an area called in­ter­view that a mark was 50, and two mem­bers of the PSC gave Er­la Christo­pher 49 and 50 marks with re­spect to el­e­vat­ing her to the top (of the in­ter­view rank­ings). We are ask­ing, who are those com­mis­sion­ers?”

Mooni­lal, who raised the is­sue dur­ing a UNC me­dia brief­ing yes­ter­day, claimed the CoP is out of her depth and was ap­point­ed by a PSC that does not have a sin­gle mem­ber with na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ex­pe­ri­ence.

He al­so raised ques­tions about the for­ma­tion of a com­pa­ny he claimed was es­tab­lished fol­low­ing Gov­ern­ment’s agree­ment with Venezue­lan over the Drag­on field.

Mooni­lal said he found out about the lo­cal com­pa­ny grant­ed a li­cense for ex­plo­ration and pro­duc­tion of the field is NGC Ex­plo­ration and Pro­duc­tion Lim­it­ed through an of­fi­cial Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment gazette which dis­closed in­for­ma­tion about the Drag­on agree­ment with the T&T gov­ern­ment.

“No one in Trinidad and To­ba­go knows of a com­pa­ny named NGC Ex­plo­ration and Pro­duc­tion. NGC is a com­pa­ny in this coun­try that ex­ists ... for the dis­tri­b­u­tion and mar­ket­ing of gas. They are mid­dle­men, so to speak.

“NGC is not an ex­plo­ration and pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny. Where did this com­pa­ny come from? Why have they been keep­ing it a se­cret?” said Mooni­lal who ex­pressed the view NGC was not equipped to per­form such a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

He al­so raised con­cerns about a US$65 mil­lion sign­ing bonus to be paid to the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment be­fore any nat­ur­al gas is tak­en to stor­age sites in T&T.

In re­sponse to Mooni­lal’s claims, En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries Min­is­ter Stu­art Young ac­cused the Op­po­si­tion of con­tin­u­ing a cam­paign of mis­in­for­ma­tion. He said there is noth­ing sus­pi­cious or un­usu­al about the for­ma­tion of NGC Ex­plo­ration and Pro­duc­tion Lim­it­ed.

“As is nor­mal with struc­tures of this na­ture, spe­cial pur­pose com­pa­nies are utilised as the li­cence hold­ers and op­er­a­tors. This is the nor­mal and ac­cept­ed course of busi­ness in the en­er­gy sec­tor as is re­flect­ed in our Pro­duc­tion Shar­ing Con­tracts and Ex­plo­ration and Pro­duc­tion Li­cences in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“The NGC en­ti­ty that is con­tract­ed on the li­cence for the Drag­on Field as is re­flect­ed on the gazetted li­cence is NGC Ex­plo­ration and Pro­duc­tion Lim­it­ed which is a legal­ly in­cor­po­rat­ed en­ti­ty. There is noth­ing un­usu­al with this ac­tion by NGC as is now be­ing sug­gest­ed by Roodal Mooni­lal of the UNC,” Young said.

He al­so rub­bished Mooni­lal’s claims that a US$65 mil­lion bonus is to be paid to the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment be­fore gas can be tak­en.

“This wild and false al­le­ga­tion is con­fir­ma­tion that the UNC has no ex­pe­ri­ence in ne­go­ti­at­ing en­er­gy li­cences and gas con­tracts. First­ly, there is no bonus pay­ment to be made in the sum of US$65 mil­lion. Sec­ond­ly, it is nor­mal with ex­plo­ration and pro­duc­tion li­cences and pro­duc­tion shar­ing con­tracts for the op­er­a­tors to have to pay bonus pay­ments and oth­er pay­ments be­fore any gas is pro­duced,” he said.

“As the li­cence for Drag­on re­flects there is a bonus pay­ment el­e­ment that has to be made by Shell and NGC. It is con­sid­er­ably less than US$65 mil­lion and the pay­ment is a struc­tured one with part pay­ments to be made over time and when cer­tain mile­stones are met. The ex­act amount and terms of pay­ment are cov­ered by strict non-dis­clo­sure oblig­a­tions which again are nor­mal in the cir­cum­stances.”

On De­cem­ber 21, the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment is­sued a 30-year li­cence to NGC and Shell for de­vel­op­ment and ex­port of nat­ur­al gas from the Drag­on Gas Field to T&T.