JUST like that, casually as ever, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley pronounced the death of Atlantic’s Train One.
His revelations came ten months after the major players such as Shell and BP stated that they will not continue to support this joint partnership on Train One.
They bluntly stated there was no gas so to continue to support these operations. For months the Government denied reports, although the Opposition called them out on it, stating they spent hundreds of millions of dollars on a project destined to fail because the end result was inevitable.
The NGC’s investment in trying to keep Train One alive was a farce. Let’s call a spade a spade, the government denied deflected, they even basically called a journalist’s reporting incredible.
The figure of spent funds keeps changing but recently the prime minister stated the figure is more around $230 million.
However, how can we believe anything they say when this whole fiasco started with denial and evading the direct questions.
The Opposition is calling for a full and independent investigation but it’s falling on deaf ears as usual as no one seems to be willing to come clean on what has happened here.
This Government’s so-called energy pundits are a total failure, in my humble view, as they misread the whole situation. Against all advice, they went ahead to cover up and buy time on the NGC’s Train One rescue plan. What a colossal miscalculation.
This didn’t work out very well for this administration as it turned out to be another nail in the coffin in our energy industry. The gas that the Government was hoping they could siphon from other downstream industries never materialised. There wasn’t any sign of gas coming ever and the prime minister had to eventually come clean and admit that the death of Train One is coming very soon.
One ill-conceived plan after another has put this Government track record in re-energising the industry further down the toilet.
This one in particular had come with a price tag to the country of approximately US$32.9 million or TT$230 million.
Where are the checks and balances?
Where are the expertise and experts that have been in this industry for the last decade and always given sound advice?
Are we so taken up by pleasing this Kieth Rowley led Government that common sense has gone out the window?
The real truth is that we the citizens, all of us, will continue to be hoodwinked by cover-ups, lies and innuendos as the powers that be play games with the country‘s resources and taxpayers’ money. We really can’t continue like this as with all the problems we have had lately and the downturn in the economy from the Covid-19 impact, we can’t afford any more of these mistakes. We are like a ship without a captain, we have lost our direction and we are headed for a wreck.
The powers that be are just not willing to put country first instead of self-interest, they are only concerned about their own wealth and wellbeing.
The people they represent which is all of us, are not a priority especially with the politicians that misrepresent us during this time.
They lack the political will, good sense to come together and devise sensible workable plans for the energy industry. They refuse to compromise for the good of the country and therefore we all will continue to be the losers in this game we call politics.
