For­mer Prime Min­is­ter and for­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter Stu­art Young has warned that the coun­try could face bond de­faults, law­suits, and a sov­er­eign cred­it down­grade due to what he de­scribes as a se­ri­ous over­sight by the UNC Gov­ern­ment in the re­cent min­is­te­r­i­al as­sign­ments.

In a state­ment on Thurs­day, Young raised alarm over the May 13, 2025 Gazette No­tice as­sign­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ties to Cab­i­net min­is­ters, say­ing it failed to ac­knowl­edge three key state en­er­gy com­pa­nies: Trinidad Pe­tro­le­um Hold­ings Lim­it­ed (TPHL), Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed, and Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed.

He ex­plained that fol­low­ing the re­struc­tur­ing of Petrotrin, the three com­pa­nies were formed and as­sumed re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for sig­nif­i­cant fi­nan­cial oblig­a­tions, in­clud­ing the re­fi­nanc­ing of a US$850 mil­lion bond that was due in Au­gust 2019 and a sep­a­rate US$750 mil­lion bond.

“TPHL and Her­itage car­ried the le­gal oblig­a­tions of the re­fi­nanc­ing of the US$850 mil­lion and oth­er sig­nif­i­cant his­tor­i­cal debts. This was then re­fi­nanced a sec­ond time and the US$850 mil­lion bond and oth­er sig­nif­i­cant debts are now car­ried by Her­itage,” Young said.

“Hav­ing pe­rused the di­rec­tions and as­sign­ments of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to both the Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries and the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance it is clear that none of these en­ti­ties are con­sid­ered, iden­ti­fied or as­signed. TPHL, Her­itage and Paria are nowhere to be seen. The UNC Gov­ern­ment has failed to rec­og­nize the ex­is­tence of these com­pa­nies.”

Young cau­tioned that the ap­par­ent omis­sion is not a mi­nor ad­min­is­tra­tive er­ror but one that car­ries se­ri­ous le­gal and fi­nan­cial risks for the coun­try.

“I cau­tion that if this is not im­me­di­ate­ly rec­ti­fied it may re­sult in de­faults be­ing de­clared un­der the bond and loan agree­ments, it can al­so trig­ger law­suits based on con­trac­tu­al oblig­a­tions, it can al­so lead to an im­me­di­ate down­grad­ing of our sov­er­eign rat­ings. This would be dis­as­trous for Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

He called on the Gov­ern­ment to ur­gent­ly cor­rect the over­sight: “Ac­cord­ing­ly, I draw this se­ri­ous neg­li­gence and/or in­com­pe­tence to the Gov­ern­ment’s at­ten­tion so that it can be im­me­di­ate­ly ad­dressed and there­by avoid any cri­sis.”

Guardian Me­dia found oth­er er­rors in the pro­posed Gazette out­lin­ing the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of gov­ern­ment min­istries, in­clud­ing the mis­place­ment of key de­part­ments and un­clear min­is­te­r­i­al au­thor­i­ty. The draft doc­u­ment list­ed the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al’s De­part­ment un­der Pub­lic Util­i­ties in­stead of Le­gal Af­fairs, while CEPEP and its South Pro­grammes were in­con­sis­tent­ly as­signed be­tween Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Pub­lic Util­i­ties. The doc­u­ment al­so failed to clear­ly state which min­istry is re­spon­si­ble for the Prison Ser­vice, re­fer­ring in­stead to a “Prison Sys­tem” un­der the Min­istry of Jus­tice, caus­ing con­fu­sion even among se­nior prison of­fi­cials.

Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath ac­knowl­edged two er­rors and a pos­si­ble third, but said the doc­u­ment was not yet of­fi­cial as it had not been pub­lished. De­spite this, the ver­sion sent to the Pres­i­dent bore the of­fi­cial stamps for gazetting. Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al mis­place­ment was in­ad­ver­tent, and con­firmed that the line min­is­ter for the Prison Ser­vice would be Jus­tice Min­is­ter De­vesh Ma­haraj. Padarath said the er­rors could be fixed with a “sim­ple no­ti­fi­ca­tion” to the Pres­i­dent.