Rowley's last political wish: Pt Lisas must become gateway for Venezuela gas

THE PRIME MINISTER says if he succeeds in having Pt Lisas become the gateway into the world market for Venezuelan gas, it would be the highlight of his political career.

Dr Rowley announced at a news conference in Tobago on January 3 that he intends to step down as prime minister after 45 years in public life.

He also will not offer himself to contest the Diego Martin West seat, which he has represented in the Parliament since 1991.

Speaking to reporters on January 4, after chairing the screening for nominees for the Tobago East and Tobago West constituencies for this year’s general election at the Calder Hall Multipurpose Facility, Rowley hailed the government’s successes in the energy sector.

But, he said, there is still one final job he wants to accomplish before quitting politics.

“Most importantly for me, as I move out of this responsibility, whether it’s a few weeks or a few months, putting Trinidad and Tobago in a position to have Pt Lisas become the gateway into the world market for Venezuelan gas and bringing our UN cross-border gas at Manatee, Cocuina-Manakin to Pt Lisas – if I have done nothing else, get that done, as we are getting it done. That, to me, is the highlight of my political career,” he said.

Rowley said he was very happy with the work being done in the energy sector.

“You would have seen, two weeks ago, the sailaway of the Mento platform. That platform was the first platform that was built in TT since 2019. We lost the bid to Mexico and Louisiana.

“Minister Young and I, we worked with oil companies to change their position from abandoning TT as a platform-building area. And when you go to those sites and you see the quality of work and the skills involved and knowing that 100 per cent of it was done by our people and thinking had that platform not been built in TT, all these people would have had no jobs.

“And to think that they did it with such panache that now that it has sailed away.

"It is on site right now about to begin the drilling programme offshore, the Manatee programme is going to start and the next platform is on its way.

“So we have come from a position of losing the opportunity and even the ability to build platforms to now building platforms one after the other. So these are multi-million-dollar opportunities.”

He said the government also restructured Atlantic LNG and renegotiated the country’s earnings from a lot of contracts without breaking the contracts.

Rowley said he was especially proud of the Ministry of Health’s management of covid19 pandemic.

“I am proud of what the Ministry of Health did during covid(19) and I was very proud to have led that health team that steered us out of covid. The covid experience, for me, I think would have been the highlight of my career.

“Because I was not only functioning for TT. I was chairman of Caricom and I had the responsibility of leading Caricom through that very difficult period. And I think we came out of it with some significant credit.”

Rowley also said he was pleased with the work being done in two new ministries: Youth Development and National Service and Digital Transformation.