Government's blind spot

“A LOT of nonsense was spoken by people who turned a blind eye to the calamity that was facing us,” the Prime Minister said on Friday, recalling criticism his administration faced when, many years ago, it decided to pursue energy-sector reform, given depleted oil and gas revenues.

In a sombre defence of his activities for the past few days in relation to energy matters, including his flying to the UK to witness the signing of a new Atlantic LNG arrangement, Dr Rowley outlined all that the government has done in the years since 2015 to safeguard the country’s interests.

Armed with a PowerPoint slide and a Cabinet note, as well as occasional interventions from Stuart Young, the Minister of Energy, the PM reminded us of the pivotal nature of the sector, the legal complexities of the LNG matter, the billions to be gained in revenue and the ever-present danger of falling into the hands of the International Monetary Fund.

“I acted decisively,” Dr Rowley told reporters gathered at the Diplomatic Centre, St Ann’s. “It was a very difficult job.”

Missing from the PM’s presentation was the fact that all his work will be in vain if Venezuela advances its agenda of land-grabbing, currently unfolding right before our eyes.

On Tuesday, Nicolás Maduro produced a new map, unilaterally delimiting the boundaries of Venezuela to include Guyana’s oil-rich Essequibo region. In complete defiance of the International Court of Justice, he ordered state companies to immediately begin licensing oil and gas exploration activities.

This came after the Venezuelan government on Sunday staged a “consultative referendum,” in which it claimed it had received a 95 per cent mandate from voters to act by any means necessary, even though polling stations were empty.

Brazil’s army intelligence has detected a build-up of Venezuelan forces near the Guyana boundary, according to reports on Thursday, hours before the PM’s media conference.

Should Venezuela continue along its path and annex two-thirds of Guyana, what is to stop it from waking up one morning and redrawing the map again? What is to prevent a belligerent Maduro regime from, for example, rejecting this country’s archipelagic baseline of 1986?

Government needs to read the room. The UK has condemned Venezuela, the US has intervened and Brazil has moved forces to its border.

Yet on Friday, the PM saved his opprobrium for the Opposition, rejecting its suggestion that we should act as an arbitrator.

Confusingly, he also said this country aims to remain close to both Venezuela and Guyana so that we could be “an honest broker.”

But whether we become “arbitrator,” “broker” or whatever else, TT’s very sovereignty has been placed at risk by our closest neighbour. That is the calamity facing us.