KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal has de­fend­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s han­dling of the re­cent off­shore oil spill, stat­ing there is no pol­i­cy re­quir­ing the min­istry to is­sue pub­lic state­ments on mi­nor in­ci­dents.

Dr Mooni­lal came un­der crit­i­cism from the Op­po­si­tion and en­vi­ron­men­tal group Fish­er­men and Friends of the Sea (FFOS) af­ter the spill was dis­closed pub­licly on­ly af­ter Venezuela is­sued a com­mu­niqué on the mat­ter over the week­end.

The spill re­port­ed­ly oc­curred on May 1 but was not pub­licly ac­knowl­edged un­til May 10. How­ev­er, the min­is­ter de­scribed it as “a small spill.”

Re­spond­ing to ur­gent ques­tions in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, Mooni­lal said: “The oil spill in ques­tion on May 1 is deemed and was deemed to be a Tier One small spill. There is no pol­i­cy or pro­to­col for the Min­istry of En­er­gy to is­sue a pub­lic ad­vi­so­ry or press re­lease in deal­ing with small spills.”

He al­so ac­cused the for­mer PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion of fail­ing to re­port nu­mer­ous spills dur­ing its tenure.

“I want to tell the min­is­ter, be­tween the years 2019 to 2021, there were 76 small spills of which the Min­istry of En­er­gy nev­er is­sued one press re­lease. Press re­leas­es are there for when there are Tier Two or Tier Three spills and it af­fects shore­lines, fish­er­folk and so on,” Mooni­lal said.

“Up­on re­ceipt on Sat­ur­day, May 9, in the late evening of a com­mu­niqué al­leged­ly is­sued by the Re­pub­lic of Venezuela, with­in hours the Min­istry of En­er­gy is­sued a state­ment,” he added.

For­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter Stu­art Young pressed Mooni­lal on whether the Gov­ern­ment had con­tact­ed Venezuela’s En­er­gy Min­is­ter to pro­vide in­for­ma­tion on the spill.

In re­sponse, Mooni­lal said: “On the very night of May 9, our state­ment from the Min­istry of En­er­gy was sent to His Ex­cel­len­cy Al­varo Sanchez Cordero, Am­bas­sador to Venezuela in Port-of-Spain.”