Former Prime Minister and former Energy Minister Stuart Young has launched a scathing attack on the Kamla Persad-Bissessar administration, accusing the United National Congress (UNC) Government of destroying Trinidad and Tobago’s energy sector through incompetence and failed commercial negotiations.<\/p>\n
In a strongly worded video statement, Young described the administration as a “kakistocracy” while pointing to developments involving Nutrien, Methanex and Proman as evidence of what he considers serious failures in energy management.<\/p>\n
His criticism comes as approximately 100 employees have been retrenched by Proman Trinidad, representing a nine per cent reduction in its local workforce.<\/p>\n
Proman attributed the reductions to a global organisational alignment exercise amid challenging operating conditions.<\/p>\n
Young also addressed Nutrien’s decision to indefinitely shut down its nitrogen operations at Point Lisas, questioning suggestions that another investor could simply acquire and operate the facility.<\/p>\n
He argued that Nutrien’s international shipping arrangements, established customer relationships and economies of scale would be extremely difficult for a new operator to replicate.<\/p>\n
Young further accused the chairman and board of the National Gas Company (NGC) of being unable to negotiate commercially viable arrangements for purchasing and selling natural gas.<\/p>\n
He cited Methanex’s decision to indefinitely idle its Titan methanol plant following unsuccessful gas contract negotiations as another example of the difficulties facing the industry.<\/p>\n
NGC has previously maintained that it negotiated constructively and in good faith with Methanex, with commercial pricing being the principal issue preventing an agreement.<\/p>\n
Young warned that the consequences extend beyond plant operations, affecting workers, families, government revenue, foreign exchange earnings and businesses dependent on the energy industry.<\/p>\n
He also alleged that widespread job losses had affected restaurants, bars, small commercial enterprises and public sector programmes and organisations, including URP, CPEP, WASA, HDC, Heritage and NGC.<\/p>\n
Those broader employment claims were not accompanied by independently verified figures.<\/p>\n
The former Prime Minister also criticised the Government’s legislative agenda, specifically referencing special operations legislation and proposed amendments to municipal corporations legislation.<\/p>\n
He alleged that the measures threaten democratic freedoms and accused the administration of attempting to manipulate administrative boundaries and the allocation of resources for political advantage.<\/p>\n
These remain allegations made by Young rather than established findings about the legislation.<\/p>\n
Turning to the national budget, Young urged citizens to be sceptical of government promises, questioning whether the administration could deliver on its commitments.<\/p>\n
He concluded by expressing concern about the country’s economic direction and praying for God’s continued blessings upon Trinidad and Tobago.<\/p>\n
His remarks add to growing political debate over the management of the country’s natural gas resources, the future of downstream manufacturing and employment security at the Point Lisas Industrial Estate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Stuart Young Accuses UNC Government of Destroying Energy Sector as Proman Cuts 100 Jobs<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5417,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trinidad-and-tobago"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}