DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath has dis­missed sug­ges­tions that Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s warmer tone to­wards Venezuela is dri­ven by Trinidad and To­ba­go’s in­ter­est in the coun­try’s en­er­gy re­sources.

Speak­ing to re­porters out­side Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, Padarath, who was nurs­ing an in­jured foot, said the Gov­ern­ment’s ap­proach re­flects chang­ing cir­cum­stances, in­clud­ing de­vel­op­ments with­in Venezuela and its geopo­lit­i­cal po­si­tion.

His com­ments come af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar, when asked on Thurs­day whether she had a mes­sage for Venezuela’s act­ing Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­driguez, said, “I love her. I look for­ward to meet­ing her.”

Padarath said the Prime Min­is­ter’s ear­li­er, tougher stance to­wards Venezuela was dri­ven by na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns, in­clud­ing vi­o­lent crime and the move­ment of il­le­gal firearms and drugs.

“I think it speaks to lead­er­ship. The Prime Min­is­ter un­der­stands that she has to be a Prime Min­is­ter for all sea­sons, in that when you are re­quired to take tough, dif­fi­cult de­ci­sions, she’s pre­pared to do so. Even if some­times you up the ante in terms of your tone, and in terms of what you say and how you say it.”

He said cir­cum­stances in Venezuela have since changed, in­clud­ing in­creased ac­tiv­i­ty by multi­na­tion­al com­pa­nies.

Asked whether he thinks Ro­driguez shares the same sen­ti­ment to­wards Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Padarath said he be­lieved both coun­tries were now fo­cused on mov­ing be­yond their dif­fer­ences.

“Min­is­ter Sobers shared some­thing with me. He said that the of­fi­cials in Venezuela pret­ty much in­di­cat­ed, let by­gones be by­gones, let us fo­cus on what the fu­ture has for both Trinidad and To­ba­go and Venezuela. And I think that’s the best ap­proach. I think both lead­ers are look­ing for­ward in terms of how both coun­tries can ben­e­fit. And, there­fore, just let the past, what we say, wa­ter un­der the bridge.”

The com­ments fol­low a pe­ri­od of diplo­mat­ic ten­sion be­tween T&T and Venezuela, in­clud­ing the de­c­la­ra­tion of Per­sad-Bisses­sar as per­sona non gra­ta by Venezuela.

But Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les ques­tioned whether the Gov­ern­ment has pro­vid­ed enough ev­i­dence of any new arrange­ments with Cara­cas.

Al­so speak­ing to re­porters out­side Par­lia­ment, Beck­les said she was not aware that Venezuela had re­moved the per­sona non gra­ta des­ig­na­tion against Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Beck­les al­so called for greater trans­paren­cy over any agree­ments reached be­tween the two coun­tries, par­tic­u­lar­ly those con­cern­ing en­er­gy.

“We know that fol­low­ing her vis­it last year to the Unit­ed States af­ter the Gen­er­al As­sem­bly and the meet­ing with Mr Ru­bio, they all said they were go­ing to Venezuela. I mean, fi­nal­ly, the Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs went to Venezuela. Where is the agree­ment? We don’t want talk. We want some ac­tion! We want them to pro­vide ev­i­dence so the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go can say, ‘What has hap­pened to the fees? What has hap­pened in the arrange­ment as it re­lates to Shell?’ How would the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go ben­e­fit now that you have de­clared your love for Del­cy Ro­driguez?”

When asked whether the Gov­ern­ment was now guilty of the same ap­proach it had ac­cused the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment of tak­ing by plac­ing too much em­pha­sis on Venezuela, Beck­les said the ad­min­is­tra­tion may have come to recog­nise the im­por­tance of the re­la­tion­ship.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar had pre­vi­ous­ly crit­i­cised the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion for its ap­proach to Venezuela and the Drag­on gas project.

In Oc­to­ber 2025, she said the pre­vi­ous PNM gov­ern­ment had “mis­tak­en­ly placed all their hopes in the Drag­on project”, while in­sist­ing her ad­min­is­tra­tion had not done the same.

Padarath, mean­while, re­ject­ed the sug­ges­tion that the Gov­ern­ment is now plac­ing ex­ces­sive re­liance on Venezuela.