The UNC strongly defended former Energy minister Kevin Ramnarine and the party’s handling of the energy sector during the People’s Partnership administration at a media briefing on Sunday.
The defence was led by Pointe-a-Pierre Opposition MP David Lee in a presentation titled the Seven Deadly Sins of this Government against the energy sector.
Lee did a comparative analysis of the energy sector under the People’s Partnership as opposed to its handling today.
Earlier this week, the Prime Minister, Energy and Energy Industries Minister Stuart Young and Ramnarine had public exchanges about the state of the industry.
Young had responded to a column Ramnarine wrote titled Facts, Fiction and Freedom of Information in which he spoke about the National Gas Company (NGC) and contractual relationships in 2015.
In that column he added that without incentives provided by the ministry and Government there would be no Juniper, Angelin, Matapal and Cypre projects and the economy would have collapsed.
Dr Rowley defended Young through a post after Young replied to Ramnarine’s column.
Lee began his presentation asking how long TT would allow the Government to say all is well when the country was facing a crisis in the sector.
“Today, we rebuke and renounce the Government’s misleading, deceitful and fraudulent attempt over the past week to tell you that our energy sector is stable and performing when in fact it has reached a fragile state.”
Lee challenged the Government to disprove his statements.
He said despite claims by Young that an energy boom was in TT’s future, it was instead a “tsunami of production declines, the exodus of energy investment and reduced national income if TT continued on this part.”
Lee said the seven deadly sins (metaphorically referring to the seven deadly sins in Christian canon) were driving oil production to the lowest in 60 years; collapsing gas production to a 25 year low; drilling for oil and gas down by 58 per cent from 2015-2024; destroyed ammonia and LNG production; destabilised the downstream sector like no other; decimation of the energy sector employment and GDP and failure of renewable energy.
Lee said Rowley either lost touch with reality or opted for fiction over facts to hide the administration’s nine-year failing in the energy sector.
“Because no metric, no existing energy review or any analysis could prove that he or his team revitalised or saved the energy sector.”
Lee expanded on each sin and said that the Government drove oil production to the lowest in 60 years and from 2015 to now production had been driven down by almost 30,000 barrels of oil.
He said the Kamla Persad-Bissessar administration left oil production at 78,656 barrels per day when it left office in 2015.
“This present Government led by Keith Christopher Rowley as Prime Minister and the Minister of Energy Stuart Young, our production as of November 2023, which is on the website of the Ministry of Energy, and total production is approximately 49,000 barrels per day…
“How could they have sav
