Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has been de­scribed as a doc­tor de­liv­er­ing the death an­nounce­ment of At­lantic LGN Train 1.

At a Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress press con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Wade Mark al­so called on the PM and his en­tire Cab­i­net to take full re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for what he de­scribed as a de­ba­cle.

Fur­ther, Mark warned Row­ley not to jus­ti­fy the bad de­ci­sions NGC had made by propos­ing to in­dem­ni­fy those ful­ly re­spon­si­ble for its death.

Train 1 is owned by At­lantic Trinidad Lim­it­ed (At­lantic) which al­so owns the en­tire fa­cil­i­ty at Point Fortin where all 4 trains op­er­ate.

“I al­so want to talk about the death an­nounce­ment made by the Prime Min­is­ter of Train 1 last evening when he ar­rived from Glas­gow Scot­land,” Mark told re­porters.

Mark said the PM was aware since De­cem­ber 2019/2020 through a let­ter sent to him by BPTT “that Train 1 could not be sup­plied with gas from ei­ther BPTT or by Shell.”

As head of the Cab­i­net, Mark said Row­ley along with En­er­gy Min­is­ter pro­ceed­ed on the ad­vice of the pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny Mark Lo­quan and its chair­man Con­rad Enil “to pump over $650 mil­lion or there­about in­to this projects...say­ing they were up­grad­ing this project....Train 1 know­ing ful­ly well there was no gas.”

Mark said Row­ley had to go to Eng­land to talk to Shell to re­turn home “to tell Trinidad and To­ba­go that the doc­tor has put on his clothes...his jack­et to pro­nounce the death of Train 1.”

The Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor said while the PNM Gov­ern­ment has been call­ing on cit­i­zens to pay prop­er­ty tax at a bit­ter and dif­fi­cult pe­ri­od in our na­tion’s his­to­ry and “your Gov­ern­ment has wast­ed some $650 mil­lion. Well, Mr Prime Min­is­ter, you are crim­i­nal­ly li­able and re­spon­si­ble and you must be held ac­count­able for that $650 mil­lion or there­about that has gone down the drain...and I think this is mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice.”

Mark said Row­ley and his en­tire Cab­i­net must not on­ly take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for this fi­as­co.

“But we call on you to get rid of Mark Lo­quan and that en­tire board....along with your­self (Row­ley) and your Cab­i­net be­cause you all are re­spon­si­ble for this de­ba­cle that has vis­it­ed our coun­try.”

Mark said the Gov­ern­ment lied to the peo­ple about the project hav­ing com­plex­i­ty, dif­fi­cul­ties and tech­ni­cal­i­ties and lit­tle or no in­for­ma­tion was giv­en to the na­tion.

“All lies. Know­ing ful­ly well that Train 1 was be­ing moth­balled. Train 1 was not go­ing any­where. Train 1 was off the track...Train 1 was de­railed. You knew that since De­cem­ber of last year, yet you pumped in­to that wreck­age some $650 mil­lion in this gua­va sea­son.”

Mark said now Row­ley was ask­ing “us for par­don. And this thing call in­dem­ni­ty...don’t take God out of your thoughts and grant any in­dem­ni­ty to Mark Lo­quan, and Enil and that board of NGC along with NGC/LNG. No! this is crim­i­nal con­duct...mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice.”