STUART STRIPPED OF DIPLOMATIC PASSPORT

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

For­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young says the Gov­ern­ment has moved to have his diplo­mat­ic pass­port re­turned, mark­ing what he de­scribes as the lat­est at­tempt to strip him of ben­e­fits af­ford­ed to for­mer prime min­is­ters.

How­ev­er, Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands Young still has pos­ses­sion of the pass­port af­ter re­quest­ing that the Gov­ern­ment make the de­mand for­mal­ly in writ­ing.

In a video state­ment post­ed to so­cial me­dia yes­ter­day, Young re­vealed that he re­ceived an un­ex­pect­ed call in­struct­ing him to sur­ren­der the diplo­mat­ic pass­port is­sued to him af­ter he demit­ted of­fice.

Young ar­gued that the lat­est de­vel­op­ment formed part of a wider pat­tern of po­lit­i­cal vic­tim­i­sa­tion by the Gov­ern­ment.

“I re­ceived a call out of the blue,” Young said.

“As a for­mer prime min­is­ter, you get a diplo­mat­ic pass­port. It was giv­en to me on the sec­ond of May last year. I didn’t ask for it. Get a call out of the blue: re­turn the pass­port.”

Young did not iden­ti­fy who con­tact­ed him or whether any le­gal ba­sis was pro­vid­ed for the re­quest. He in­di­cat­ed, how­ev­er, that he does not in­tend to sim­ply com­ply with­out due process.

“I will deal with that. I will deal with that in ac­cor­dance with the law at the ap­pro­pri­ate time,” he said.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed MP Young last evening how­ev­er, he said he was not pre­pared to say more at this time.

The de­vel­op­ment comes less than a year af­ter the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Gov­ern­ment suc­cess­ful­ly amend­ed leg­is­la­tion to pre­vent Young from re­ceiv­ing the re­tire­ment gra­tu­ity and pen­sion that would oth­er­wise have been payable to a for­mer prime min­is­ter. The amend­ments fol­lowed crit­i­cism over Young’s 42-day tenure as prime min­is­ter be­fore the April 2025 Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

Un­der the Im­mi­gra­tion Act, Chap. 18:01, the au­thor­i­ty to is­sue, re­new or re­voke pass­ports rests ex­clu­sive­ly with the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty.

Guardian Me­dia, how­ev­er, could find no spe­cif­ic pro­vi­sion for for­mer prime min­is­ters in the act. The act al­so con­tains no au­to­mat­ic con­sti­tu­tion­al or statu­to­ry en­ti­tle­ment al­low­ing them to re­tain diplo­mat­ic pass­ports af­ter leav­ing of­fice.

Guardian Me­dia sent ques­tions to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ask­ing why Young’s pass­port was be­ing re­quest­ed, whether a de­ci­sion had been made to re­voke it and whether oth­er for­mer prime min­is­ters had re­ceived sim­i­lar re­quests. Up to press time, no re­sponse was re­ceived.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, who is cur­rent­ly out of the coun­try, to de­ter­mine whether he had sim­i­lar­ly been asked to sur­ren­der his diplo­mat­ic pass­port.

“I have a diplo­mat­ic pass­port which I used to­day,” Row­ley replied via mes­sage.

The diplo­mat­ic pass­port is­sue rep­re­sents the sec­ond sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenge to Young’s post-of­fice en­ti­tle­ments since leav­ing the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter.

Fol­low­ing the 2025 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, the Gov­ern­ment amend­ed leg­is­la­tion gov­ern­ing pen­sions and gra­tu­ities for for­mer prime min­is­ters af­ter pub­lic de­bate over Young’s el­i­gi­bil­i­ty fol­low­ing his 42-day tenure.

Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters ar­gued at the time that it would have been in­ap­pro­pri­ate for a prime min­is­ter who served for just six weeks to re­ceive ben­e­fits equiv­a­lent to lead­ers who held the of­fice for years.

Young and the Op­po­si­tion crit­i­cised the move, de­scrib­ing it as leg­is­la­tion specif­i­cal­ly tar­get­ed at one in­di­vid­ual.

For now, Young re­mains in pos­ses­sion of the pass­port while await­ing a for­mal writ­ten re­quest from the Gov­ern­ment, with the le­gal and po­lit­i­cal dis­pute ap­pear­ing set to con­tin­ue.

Young said the pass­port is­sue re­flect­ed what he be­lieved had be­come an in­creas­ing­ly hos­tile po­lit­i­cal en­vi­ron­ment un­der the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion.

“The po­lit­i­cal vic­tim­i­sa­tion and po­lit­i­cal per­se­cu­tion that has been tak­ing place since May 2025 is un­prece­dent­ed in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said.

He ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of fo­cus­ing on po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents in­stead of ad­dress­ing the coun­try’s grow­ing eco­nom­ic and so­cial chal­lenges.

“A lot is go­ing on in Trinidad and To­ba­go these days,” Young said.

He said thou­sands of work­ers have lost their jobs across state-fund­ed pro­grammes and state en­ter­pris­es since the Gov­ern­ment as­sumed of­fice.

“The fir­ing of tens of thou­sands of our most vul­ner­a­ble work­ers and cit­i­zens in CPEP, URP, re­for­esta­tion, con­tin­ued fir­ings at WASA, T&TEC, even in the en­er­gy sec­tor, at Her­itage, NGC, NE, PPG­PL and Paria. Every day peo­ple are be­ing ter­mi­nat­ed by this Gov­ern­ment.”

Young al­leged the dis­missals were po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed, adding fam­i­lies were pay­ing the price.

“Fam­i­lies out there are hurt­ing. I know, as Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Port of Spain North/St Ann’s West, I see it, I feel it, as I try to help my con­stituents who are made un­em­ployed by this cur­rent Gov­ern­ment.”

The for­mer prime min­is­ter al­so crit­i­cised the ad­min­is­tra­tion’s han­dling of the coun­try’s en­er­gy sec­tor, point­ing to on­go­ing gas short­ages and re­cent an­nounce­ments af­fect­ing the in­dus­try.

“Col­lapse of our en­er­gy sec­tor. The oth­er day at the mid-year re­view, you had them rais­ing the price of oil and gas and we’re not even meet­ing those prices. Plants clos­ing down,” Young said.

He said these is­sues should in­stead com­mand Gov­ern­ment’s full at­ten­tion.