Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has hit back at what he calls “dotish” al­le­ga­tions that Gov­ern­ment is af­fil­i­at­ed with the So­lo Creed, the tug­boat be­hind the oil spill off To­ba­go’s coast.

Speak­ing at the open­ing of the Diego Mar­tin Pub­lic Li­brary yes­ter­day, Row­ley said there is no short­age of neg­a­tive con­ver­sa­tions in the coun­try that even bor­ders on stu­pid­i­ty.

Us­ing the oil spill as an ex­am­ple, Row­ley said, “This morn­ing I am hear­ing a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment with a the­o­ry, long con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry, that the on­ly rea­son why that boat could have struck To­ba­go and leaked oil on our beach­es is be­cause it was sneak­ing through Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

On Sun­day, us­ing a Guardian Me­dia ex­clu­sive re­port as a ref­er­ence, Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal said it ap­pears this coun­try’s wa­ters have been used to fa­cil­i­tate sanc­tion bust­ing.

How­ev­er, Dr Row­ley said it ap­pears peo­ple have for­got­ten the ge­og­ra­phy of this coun­try.

“You know on one side you have the At­lantic Ocean and the oth­er side the Caribbean Sea, and any­body go­ing from one to the oth­er must pass through be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go or be­tween To­ba­go and Grena­da go­ing wher­ev­er they are go­ing, whether le­gal or il­le­gal, that is where you have to pass to go,” the Prime Min­is­ter told the gath­er­ing.

An an­i­mat­ed Dr Row­ley added, “Some­thing hap­pened and all of a sud­den the ge­og­ra­phy change, the on­ly rea­son why that ves­sel could have been go­ing there is be­cause it was smug­gling oil from so and so and the Gov­ern­ment was in­volved and Row­ley was in­volved and (Stu­art) Young was in­volved, how much dotish­ness they will talk in Trinidad and To­ba­go?”

On Sun­day, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young sought to un­der­score, “Trinidad and To­ba­go is not re­spon­si­ble for this in­ci­dent as the ves­sel or ves­sels were in no way what­so­ev­er as­so­ci­at­ed with Trinidad and To­ba­go.”