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Wednesday, February 19, 2025

Stuart: Moonilal ‘grasping at straws’ with questions about visits to Venezuela

by

34 days ago
20250116
Dr Roodal Moonilal presents documents outlining the cost of Energy and Energy Industries Minister Stuart Young’s trips to Venezuela during the UNC Pavement Report at Debe High School, M2 Ring Road, Debe, on Tuesday.

Dr Roodal Moonilal presents documents outlining the cost of Energy and Energy Industries Minister Stuart Young’s trips to Venezuela during the UNC Pavement Report at Debe High School, M2 Ring Road, Debe, on Tuesday.

KRISTIAN DE SILVA

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young be­lieves Op­po­si­tion MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal is “grasp­ing at straws” when he ques­tioned if Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicholas Maduro in­struct­ed Young to with­hold the names of the of­fi­cials he met with in Venezuela be­tween 2022 and 2024.

Speak­ing at a Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Pave­ment re­port in Debe on Tues­day evening, Mooni­lal said at long last he re­ceived a re­sponse from Young to a ques­tion filed through the Par­lia­ment in Sep­tem­ber 2024 ask­ing for de­tails as it per­tained to Young’s trav­els to Venezuela dur­ing the pe­ri­od April 2021 to Ju­ly 2024.

The ques­tion asked for, a) the num­ber of oc­ca­sions on which the Min­is­ter has trav­elled to that coun­try; b) the of­fi­cial agen­da of each meet­ing held; c) a list of all the of­fi­cials in at­ten­dance at each meet­ing; and d) cost of trav­el, ac­com­mo­da­tion and oth­er ex­pens­es to the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go for the Min­is­ter’s at­ten­dance at each meet­ing?

In De­cem­ber 2024, House Speak­er Bridgid An­nisette-George for­mal­ly re­quest­ed En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young ex­plain the de­lay in an­swer­ing the ques­tion.

The writ­ten re­sponse, how­ev­er, on­ly cov­ered the pe­ri­od Au­gust 2022 and June 2024, de­tail­ing 13 trips made dur­ing this time.

But Mooni­lal was not sat­is­fied with the writ­ten an­swer say­ing it did not con­tain who Young met with in the South Amer­i­can na­tion.

“Tonight, I ask you, Stu­art Young, to tell us, is it that he is pro­hib­it­ed by the Gov­ern­ment of Venezuela from nam­ing any­one he meets in Venezuela? Did Maduro tell him that he can­not dis­close the names of any Venezue­lan of­fi­cials that he meets in Venezuela?” Mooni­lal asked.

Mooni­lal al­so ex­pressed shock over the cost of these trips. Mooni­lal said those 13 trips amount­ed to al­most $1.2 mil­lion.

Look­ing at the cost break­down, Mooni­lal said, “This one is nice, No­vem­ber 2-4, 2023, that is one day, so you trav­el on the 2nd and re­turn on the 4th , they car­ry Per­ma­nent Sec­re­taries as well I think, $137,000 to spend a day in Venezuela. What is this man do­ing in Venezeu­la?”

How­ev­er, in re­sponse, Min­is­ter Young told Guardian Me­dia, “Un­sur­pris­ing­ly Mr Mooni­lal is grasp­ing at straws. Very of­ten on these of­fi­cial vis­its to Venezuela, the gov­ern­ment of the Bo­li­var­i­an Re­pub­lic of Venezuela is­sued con­tem­po­ra­ne­ous me­dia re­leas­es of my meet­ings.”

Young said his of­fi­cial vis­its to Venezuela were for the ben­e­fit of this coun­try.

“The re­sults and de­liv­er­ies of these trips are the ex­plo­ration and pro­duc­tion li­cences that Trinidad and To­ba­go, Shell and BP have ex­e­cut­ed with the Bo­li­var­i­an Re­pub­lic of Venezuela. A 30-year li­cence to ex­plore, pro­duce and ex­port gas from the Drag­on field to Trinidad and To­ba­go and a twen­ty-year li­cence to ex­plore, pro­duce and ex­port gas from the Cocuina field to Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he ex­plained.

The En­er­gy Min­is­ter added, “These two deals of­fer the op­por­tu­ni­ty for Trinidad and To­ba­go to con­tin­ue be­ing a ma­jor LNG pro­duc­er, as well as, a ma­jor glob­al top two ex­porter of am­mo­nia and methanol. Both of these li­cences, as well as the dis­cus­sions that I pur­sued and con­tin­ue to pur­sue for more projects, will ben­e­fit the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Mooni­lal said he is con­sid­er­ing fil­ing a Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion re­quest for ad­di­tion­al de­tails.


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