Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

Se­nior Re­porter

eliz­a­beth.gon­za­les@guardian.co.tt

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les says the par­ty was on­ly in­formed by for­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young that he would be out of the coun­try, as ques­tions con­tin­ue over Young’s meet-up with Venezuela’s act­ing Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez last week.

How­ev­er, Gon­za­les, who is al­so Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip, yes­ter­day de­clined to com­ment on the de­tails of Young’s trip.

“I don’t want to com­ment on that fur­ther,” Gon­za­les told Guardian Me­dia.

He added, “As Chief Whip, he (Young) in­formed me that he was go­ing to be out of the coun­try. So, I’m aware of that and from my rec­ol­lec­tion, the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion was al­so in­formed that he was go­ing to be out of the coun­try dur­ing that time pe­ri­od.”

Gon­za­les did not say whether the PNM knew the pur­pose of Young’s vis­it, whether it was per­son­al, po­lit­i­cal or oth­er­wise, or whether of­fi­cials knew he would meet Ro­dríguez.

Last week, Young post­ed a pho­to with Ro­dríguez af­ter a meet­ing in Cara­cas, trig­ger­ing po­lit­i­cal fall­out at a time when the Gov­ern­ment is prepar­ing its own diplo­mat­ic mis­sion to Venezuela on en­er­gy mat­ters. En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal has ac­cused Young of un­der­min­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s en­er­gy in­ter­ests and called on him to ex­plain the na­ture of the vis­it and what was dis­cussed.

Young has de­nied un­der­min­ing the coun­try, say­ing he would nev­er act against Trinidad and To­ba­go’s in­ter­est. He has ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of try­ing to dis­tract from its own strained re­la­tion­ship with Venezuela.

Calls to Young and Beck­les-Robin­son yes­ter­day went unan­swered.