Ra­mona Ram­di­al

Last week’s “Har­vest Su­per­moon” seemed to have her­ald­ed some un­usu­al oc­cur­rences. Ahead of to­day’s na­tion­al Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion (the first by a Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Fi­nance Min­is­ter since cur­rent Cen­tral Bank of T&T Gov­er­nor Lar­ry Howai’s de­liv­ery in 2014), Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar “shuf­fled” min­is­te­r­i­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ties with­out of­fi­cial­ly re­ar­rang­ing port­fo­lios. The Prime Min­is­ter had threat­ened to “buss the heads” of cer­tain mem­bers of her Gov­ern­ment in Au­gust. Did she de­liv­er on her warn­ing by reign­ing in the re­mit of Min­is­ters Rati­ram, Lee, Ben­jamin, Mooni­lal, Bo­doe, Smith, Satyaka­ma Ma­haraj, Watts, and Mo­hit? Con­verse­ly, those min­is­ters who have lev­elled up are Min­is­ters Padarath, Ho­sein, Alexan­der, Bap­tiste, and Swarats­ingh. Those with lighter loads tried to take the set­back in stride, but how can such not be in­ter­pret­ed, at least, as the di­min­ished con­fi­dence of their leader? The PM her­self as­sumed sev­er­al of their re­spon­si­bil­i­ties. Some would say that she is con­sol­i­dat­ing loy­al­ties ahead of the 2026 UNC Na­tex elec­tions, or even set­ting the stage for an ex­ec­u­tive pres­i­den­cy by the end of her term.

Was cli­mate change re­spon­si­ble for last week’s west­ern wa­ter­spout and tor­na­do? Did the strange weath­er pre­cip­i­tate the de­ci­sion to re-ar­rest Min­is­ter David Lee and busi­ness­man Hugh Leong Poi? Is Chief Jus­tice Archie clear­ing his desk be­fore he demits of­fice this law term? Per­haps we will see a lot more high-pro­file cas­es on the dock­et? Maybe promi­nent names such as Dana See­ta­hal, SC, Mar­cia-Ay­ers Cae­sar and An­dre Mon­teil will al­so be back in the head­lines soon.

“Jus­tice de­layed is jus­tice de­nied” in all cas­es, whether promi­nent or not. Min­is­ter Lee is hav­ing a par­tic­u­lar­ly tough time. Even though he has Min­is­ter Roberts and Alexan­der to as­sist him in the Hous­ing Min­istry, the PM still re­lieved them of cer­tain re­spon­si­bil­i­ties ahead of his re-ar­rest. All three would have felt ag­griev­ed.

The Prime Min­is­ter would have tak­en in­to ac­count cer­tain ill-ad­vised state­ments or ac­tiv­i­ties and, in some cas­es, non-ac­tion be­fore re­as­sign­ing au­thor­i­ty. Per­haps such mat­ters were dis­cussed with her en­tourage dur­ing her trip to NYC for UN­GA 80. MPs would have de­liv­ered lit­tle or noth­ing in road works, drainage, and gen­er­al en­vi­ron­men­tal main­te­nance for some time. The shut­ting down of URP, CEPEP, and the lim­i­ta­tions of the re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions would have ex­ac­er­bat­ed mat­ters.

Many have been told to “hold strain till af­ter Bud­get.” As such, to­day’s Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion is a defin­ing mo­ment for this in­car­na­tion of the UNC Gov­ern­ment. Even more im­por­tant will be the vi­a­bil­i­ty of the di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion and rev­enue-gen­er­at­ing pro­grammes to be rolled out in the com­ing months. Will there be enough funds for the MPs and coun­cil­lors to calm down their seething con­stituents? Will they ever be told to “re­lease the strain?”

The US Trea­sury De­part­ment has grant­ed a six-month OFAC li­cence to the Gov­ern­ment, NGC, Shell PLC, Fu­tu­ra Clara Ltd, and oth­er re­lat­ed ser­vice providers to pur­sue the de­vel­op­ment of the Drag­on gas field. So, we have un­til April 2026 to get Venezuela Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro to ho­n­our the terms of our 30-year li­cence that he signed for our last gov­ern­ment be­fore the pre­vi­ous OFAC li­cence got cooked.

What can hap­pen in six months? How can we be cer­tain that it will be re­newed in May 2026? Do the terms of the OFAC li­cence give Venezuela enough in­cen­tive to par­tic­i­pate? Are Shell and the oth­er providers con­fi­dent of ex­e­cu­tion, or is there too much geopo­lit­i­cal in­sta­bil­i­ty in­her­ent in the project?

In 2007, the Venezue­lan state-owned oil com­pa­ny PDVSA ex­pro­pri­at­ed the in­vest­ments in that coun­try made by the US oil com­pa­ny Cono­coPhillips. Cono­coPhillips filed law­suits in sev­er­al ju­ris­dic­tions, in­clud­ing our own, to re­coup its US$1.3 bil­lion from PDVSA. Will Maduro green­light the Drag­on gas project, on­ly for the pro­ceeds to be di­vert­ed to an Amer­i­can oil com­pa­ny? The seizure of Cono­coPhillips’ prop­er­ty hap­pened un­der the pres­i­den­cy of Hugo Chavez. Is Maduro will­ing to con­cede the ac­qui­si­tions of his gu­ru? Will the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion al­low Pres­i­dent Maduro to ben­e­fit from the Drag­on gas project, whether or not Cono­coPhillips re­ceives com­pen­sa­tion?

As we walk the tightrope be­tween Pres­i­dents Maduro and Trump for our na­tion’s fu­ture, the Nor­we­gian No­bel Com­mit­tee may have de­liv­ered a mes­sage for them both. They se­lect­ed Venezue­lan Op­po­si­tion Leader Maria Co­ri­na Macha­do as the re­cip­i­ent of the 2025 No­bel Peace Prize, “who keeps the flame of democ­ra­cy burn­ing amidst a grow­ing dark­ness” (This would elic­it re­minders of up­com­ing Di­vali cel­e­bra­tions to Trin­bag­o­ni­ans). This is a slap in the face to Pres­i­dent Maduro, whose in­flu­ence could be in­ter­pret­ed as that “grow­ing dark­ness.” Al­though Pres­i­dent Trump would be dis­ap­point­ed that he was not the re­cip­i­ent of the prize him­self, Macha­do ded­i­cat­ed part of her win to him for his sup­port of democ­ra­cy in Venezuela. Will Macha­do’s No­bel Prize in­spire a new rev­o­lu­tion with­in, and will the US mil­i­tary pres­ence from out­side com­bine to oust Maduro?

Our Prime Min­is­ter is an­oth­er pow­er­ful woman sup­port­ive of the US mil­i­tary pres­ence in our re­gion. Can PM Per­sad-Bisses­sar and a pres­i­dent Co­ri­na Macha­do be easy al­lies in a pos­si­ble fu­ture of peace, democ­ra­cy, and en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty? For our own in­ter­est, that seems dif­fi­cult to imag­ine with­in a mere six-month time frame. We have to deal with the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment, who­ev­er they are/will be.

As we catch glimpses of the mi­rage of a brighter fu­ture fu­elled by Drag­on gas, we an­tic­i­pate a roadmap to pros­per­i­ty be­ing laid down to­day, with or with­out it.

Ra­mona Ram­di­al is a for­mer MP in the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment.