Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

UNC MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal has called for all the de­tails on sev­er­al trips made by En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young to Venezuela be­tween 2022 and 2024, which Mooni­lal claims cost an es­ti­mat­ed $1.2 mil­lion.

At last night’s UNC meet­ing in Debe, he said he had fi­nal­ly re­ceived in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing the trips on which he had filed a query in the Par­lia­ment last Oc­to­ber. Mooni­lal said the re­ply was cir­cu­lat­ed at Mon­day’s Par­lia­ment sit­ting.

The ques­tion in­volved Young’s of­fi­cial trav­el to Venezuela from April 2021 to Ju­ly 2024, in­clud­ing a break­down of the fol­low­ing: a) the num­ber of oc­ca­sions on which Young trav­elled to Venezuela; b) the of­fi­cial agen­da of each meet­ing held; c) a list of all the of­fi­cials in at­ten­dance at each meet­ing; and d) the cost of trav­el, ac­com­mo­da­tion, and oth­er ex­pens­es to T&T for the min­is­ter’s at­ten­dance at each meet­ing.

Al­though the query called for trips from 2021, the re­ply list­ed 13 trips be­tween Au­gust 2022 and June 2024, costs, and names of peo­ple on the trips. All replies stat­ed, “The min­is­ter con­duct­ed of­fi­cial trav­el to the Bo­li­var­i­an Re­pub­lic of Venezuela to dis­cuss mat­ters of na­tion­al in­ter­est to Venezuela and Trinidad and To­ba­go. No­tably, the Ho­n­ourable Min­is­ter ne­go­ti­at­ed mat­ters re­lat­ed to the en­er­gy sec­tor.”

Each trip cost be­tween a min­i­mum of $32,414.08 (for an Au­gust 5-6, 2022 trip with a se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cial and in­ter­preter) and a max­i­mum of $240,800.40 (for a six-mem­ber trip on June 12-16, 2024). Mooni­lal said, ”The an­swer is at best in­com­plete. We asked for the num­ber of oc­ca­sions on which Min­is­ter Young trav­elled to Venezuela, the of­fi­cial agen­da for each meet­ing, and a list of all the of­fi­cials in at­ten­dance at each meet­ing and trav­el cost.” 

He claimed, “They gave us a doc­u­ment which spec­tac­u­lar­ly shows that the min­is­ter trav­elled be­tween Au­gust 2022 to June 2024 with a stag­ger­ing sum of $1.2 m in trav­el to Min­is­ter Young and who­ev­er he took. On many trips, he was ac­com­pa­nied on­ly by an in­ter­preter, no of­fi­cials, le­gal or tech­ni­cal per­son from the sec­tor. Many of those trips he was al­so ac­com­pa­nied by a De­fence Force com­man­der when he went to dis­cuss en­er­gy mat­ters—very star­tling.

“The an­swers on the of­fi­cial agen­da for the meet­ings al­so on­ly stat­ed they were to ne­go­ti­ate  ‘en­er­gy mat­ters’,” he said.

“That’s a con­tempt of the Par­lia­ment. Fur­ther ac­tion will be brought through Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion re­quests, which will be made to the min­istry. The Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary had a du­ty to fur­nish an ac­cu­rate ac­count, and noth­ing stat­ed who Young went to meet.”

Mooni­lal queried a Feb­ru­ary 14-15 trip, which he said was on Valen­tine’s Day with a $62,000 cost. He cit­ed a two-day meet­ing for a team cost­ing $125,000 and oth­ers.

He said, “The an­swers don’t prop­er­ly ac­count. They’re far­ci­cal and speak of the lack of ac­count­abil­i­ty, trans­paren­cy and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of Min­is­ter Young as en­er­gy min­is­ter.  We shud­der to think what would be his re­sponse and re­ac­tions as Prime Min­is­ter.”