Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

For­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter Stu­art Young is ques­tion­ing whether Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is well po­si­tioned to en­gage Venezuela diplo­mat­i­cal­ly, rais­ing con­cerns about her stand­ing with that coun­try’s lead­er­ship and her past state­ments.

Speak­ing at an Op­po­si­tion me­dia brief­ing yes­ter­day at the Of­fice of the Op­po­si­tion Leader in Port-of-Spain, Young chal­lenged the Prime Min­is­ter to clar­i­fy whether she recog­nis­es Del­cy Ro­dríguez as Venezuela’s act­ing pres­i­dent and whether she re­mains per­sona non gra­ta to the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment.

“All of a sud­den yes­ter­day, the Prime Min­is­ter an­nounces a diplo­mat­ic mis­sion to Venezuela,” Young said. “The first ques­tion is: do you recog­nise Her Ex­cel­len­cy Del­cy Ro­dríguez as the cur­rent act­ing Pres­i­dent of the Bo­li­var­i­an Re­pub­lic of Venezuela? We still have not got­ten a re­sponse.”

Last Oc­to­ber, Venezuela’s Na­tion­al As­sem­bly de­clared Per­sad-Bisses­sar per­sona non gra­ta, bar­ring her from en­ter­ing the coun­try. The move came amid es­ca­lat­ing diplo­mat­ic ten­sions linked to her sup­port for US mil­i­tary ac­tion in the Caribbean and co­op­er­a­tion with the Unit­ed States.

Young said the is­sue is crit­i­cal giv­en the strained re­la­tions be­tween the two coun­tries, ar­gu­ing that it could com­pli­cate any at­tempt to ne­go­ti­ate ac­cess to cross-bor­der gas re­sources.

His com­ments came one day af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced that a diplo­mat­ic del­e­ga­tion will trav­el to Cara­cas to en­sure Trinidad and To­ba­go se­cures its “just share” of oil and gas from joint fields, sig­nalling a re­newed push to ad­vance long-stalled en­er­gy projects. She pro­vid­ed no fur­ther de­tails and de­clined to take ques­tions.

Young crit­i­cised the move as re­ac­tive and poor­ly timed.

“So all of a sud­den, Madam per­sona non gra­ta wakes up and de­cides we need to get to Venezuela,” he said, adding that such a mis­sion may now be nec­es­sary pre­cise­ly be­cause of the strained re­la­tion­ship.

He al­so ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of al­low­ing multi­na­tion­al en­er­gy com­pa­nies to take the lead in ne­go­ti­a­tions in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s ab­sence.

“You are giv­ing multi­na­tion­al oil and gas com­pa­nies a free run and putting us at a dis­ad­van­tage,” he said.

The for­mer min­is­ter de­fend­ed the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion’s record, point­ing to what he de­scribed as years of struc­tured ne­go­ti­a­tions with Venezuela.

“We ne­go­ti­at­ed se­cur­ing a 30-year li­cence for Drag­on and a 20-year li­cence for Co­quina-Man­a­tee, in­clud­ing the de-uni­ti­sa­tion of Man­a­tee from Lo­ran. Those are the projects you are now count­ing on,” he said. “Every sin­gle gas project now com­ing on stream in Trinidad and To­ba­go is the re­sult of work done over the last 10 years.”

The planned del­e­ga­tion is ex­pect­ed to fo­cus on key cross-bor­der re­serves, in­clud­ing the Drag­on gas field and the Lo­ran-Man­a­tee field.

The Drag­on field, lo­cat­ed in Venezue­lan wa­ters near Trinidad and To­ba­go’s en­er­gy in­fra­struc­ture, is con­sid­ered a crit­i­cal sup­ply source for the coun­try’s LNG sec­tor. How­ev­er, progress has been hin­dered by geopo­lit­i­cal ten­sions and past Unit­ed States sanc­tions.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les al­so weighed in, ques­tion­ing what she de­scribed as a con­tra­dic­tion in the Gov­ern­ment’s ap­proach to Venezuela.

“The Prime Min­is­ter spoke about nar­co-ter­ror­ism and ac­cused these same of­fi­cials, and now you are send­ing a diplo­mat­ic mis­sion to speak with them,” Beck­les said.

She added that the pub­lic is still await­ing an ex­pla­na­tion for the ap­par­ent shift in po­si­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly in light of pre­vi­ous state­ments about Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties and re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns.

“How is it that these same peo­ple you pre­vi­ous­ly con­demned—and in the con­text of ves­sels leav­ing Venezuela and pass­ing through our wa­ters spoke about us­ing dead­ly force—are now the ones you are seek­ing to en­gage diplo­mat­i­cal­ly?” Beck­les asked.

Mean­while, Venezuela’s act­ing pres­i­dent, Del­cy Ro­dríguez, em­barked on her first in­ter­na­tion­al vis­it since tak­ing of­fice in Jan­u­ary, ar­riv­ing in Grena­da yes­ter­day. The pur­pose of the vis­it has not been dis­closed, though state me­dia showed her be­ing wel­comed by Grena­da’s For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter, Joseph An­dall, on ar­rival.