Richard?Lord

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says T&T and Nige­ria will col­lab­o­rate in en­er­gy and en­er­gy re­lat­ed projects. She said so dur­ing bi­lat­er­al talks with Niger­ian Pres­i­dent Good­luck Jonathan at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre yes­ter­day. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said T&T and Nige­ria con­tin­ue to share "an ex­cel­lent bi­lat­er­al re­la­tion­ship" since 1962.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said in 2008 Trinidad and To­ba­go em­barked on the Africa En­er­gy Ini­tia­tive, of­fer­ing tech­ni­cal con­sul­ta­tion and as­sis­tance in the en­er­gy sec­tor to sev­er­al African states. She not­ed that the ini­tia­tive was "un­der re­vi­sion in or­der to im­prove ef­fi­cien­cy for all stake­hold­ers and the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy Af­fairs will launch a new Africa Ini­tia­tive pol­i­cy in due course."

She said in the in­ter­im, Trinidad and To­ba­go will con­tin­ue to col­lab­o­rate with Nige­ria in en­er­gy and en­er­gy re­lat­ed projects and looks for­ward to wel­com­ing del­e­ga­tions from Nige­ria to vis­it Trinidad and To­ba­go for ex­changes in this area. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Trinidad and To­ba­go al­so re­mained com­mit­ted to mak­ing avail­able to Nige­ria its tech­ni­cal ex­perts in the en­er­gy sec­tor.

She said she was await­ing a re­port from the Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and En­er­gy Af­fairs on the pro­posed Izombe Gas Pro­cess­ing Project be­tween the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny, the Na­tion­al En­er­gy Cor­po­ra­tion and Phoenix Park Gas Proces­sors Lim­it­ed of Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Na­tion­al Pe­tro­le­um Cor­po­ra­tion of Nige­ria.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said T&T?was al­so pleased to be a part of the Niger Delta Amnesty Pro­gramme, which was ini­ti­at­ed and im­ple­ment­ed by the Niger­ian Pres­i­dent. That ini­tia­tive was in­tend­ed to en­gage young per­sons from the en­er­gy-rich Niger Delta in train­ing and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion pro­grammes, there­by con­tribut­ing to the pos­i­tive de­vel­op­ment of that re­gion.

She said the vi­sion was al­so to pro­mote and de­vel­op the steel pan in Nige­ria and through­out the African con­ti­nent. "The ex­plo­sive growth of youth steel bands and or­ches­tras in Trinidad and To­ba­go are in­dica­tive of the steel pan's ap­peal to the youth and its role as a mo­ti­vat­ing in­flu­ence in their lives. I would en­cour­age Your Ex­cel­len­cy to ful­ly ex­plore the po­ten­tial of steel pan mu­sic ed­u­ca­tion pro­grammes for youth. I as­sure you that the re­sults will be ex­ceed­ing­ly pos­i­tive,"?she in­sist­ed.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Min­istry of the Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism and the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion of Trinidad and To­ba­go were read­i­ly avail­able to of­fer tech­ni­cal as­sis­tance to Nige­ria for the de­vel­op­ment of Abu­ja Car­ni­val, as has been done in the past with Cal­abar and La­gos car­ni­vals. At the start of her ad­dress Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so ex­pressed her "deep re­gret and sor­row" on the demise of the Pres­i­dent of Ghana His Ex­cel­len­cy John At­ta Mills.

Pres­i­dent At­ta Mills, who was revered as one of Africa's great lead­ers, died last week. A mo­ment's si­lence was ob­served in re­spect of his pass­ing.