Dragon Gas collapses, diplomacy frays and crises converge in T&T

DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­[email protected]

Oc­to­ber re­opened a chap­ter many in Trinidad and To­ba­go be­lieved had stalled in­def­i­nite­ly—the Drag­on Gas deal. Once tout­ed as a life­line for the coun­try’s en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty, the deal re­turned to the cen­tre of po­lit­i­cal de­bate. It came as the na­tion grap­pled with de­clin­ing nat­ur­al gas pro­duc­tion and mount­ing pres­sure on its in­dus­tri­al base.

The Gov­ern­ment sig­nalled re­newed en­gage­ment with the Unit­ed States over the cross-bor­der gas arrange­ment at the end of Sep­tem­ber. Nine days in­to Oc­to­ber, the Unit­ed States of­fi­cial­ly grant­ed a six-month Of­fice of For­eign As­sets Con­trol (OFAC) li­cence au­tho­ris­ing the trans­ac­tions nec­es­sary for ne­go­ti­a­tions with Venezuela to joint­ly ex­plore the Drag­on Gas field.

Shell sig­nalled its readi­ness to re­sume prepara­to­ry work, but the op­ti­mism proved short-lived. De­spite the OFAC li­cence, Venezuela made clear it was not pre­pared to budge on key terms, while geopo­lit­i­cal ten­sions rapid­ly eclipsed tech­ni­cal dis­cus­sions. As the month wore on, Drag­on be­came en­tan­gled in a broad­er diplo­mat­ic fall­out that would ul­ti­mate­ly de­rail the project once more.

By the fi­nal week of Oc­to­ber, Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro sus­pend­ed gas arrange­ments with T&T al­to­geth­er, cut­ting en­er­gy lines and ef­fec­tive­ly freez­ing co­op­er­a­tion.

“I have ap­proved the pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sure of the im­me­di­ate sus­pen­sion of all the ef­fects and the agree­ments. That is why I have de­cid­ed to take this de­ci­sion. What the su­prema­cists want is Venezuela’s rich­es,” Maduro said.

Days pri­or, amid un­re­solved port ac­cess and gas sup­ply con­cerns, fer­tilis­er gi­ant Nu­trien ini­ti­at­ed a planned shut­down of its Point Lisas plant, send­ing home hun­dreds of work­ers and re­in­forc­ing fears about the fragili­ty of the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor.

The Drag­on episode un­der­scored a hard re­al­i­ty: the coun­try’s en­er­gy chal­lenge was no longer sim­ply about se­cur­ing re­serves but about nav­i­gat­ing an in­creas­ing­ly hos­tile geopo­lit­i­cal en­vi­ron­ment with lim­it­ed lever­age.

If Drag­on Gas ex­posed T&T’s eco­nom­ic fragili­ty, Oc­to­ber’s for­eign pol­i­cy cri­sis ex­posed an even more pre­car­i­ous diplo­mat­ic foot­ing. The fall­out deep­ened af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­it­er­at­ed that the Unit­ed States should “kill them all vi­o­lent­ly,” re­fer­ring to nar­co­traf­fick­ers tar­get­ed in a se­ries of ki­net­ic strikes off Venezuela’s coast.

In un­der a week, T&T was thrust in­to one of its most volatile geopo­lit­i­cal mo­ments in decades. Per­sad-Bisses­sar was de­clared per­sona non gra­ta by the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment, a move that came just three days af­ter the US guid­ed-mis­sile de­stroy­er, the USS Grave­ly, docked in Port-of-Spain, and amid ac­cu­sa­tions from Cara­cas that Wash­ing­ton and T&T were con­spir­ing to in­vade Venezuela.

“It is a mat­ter of ho­n­our, dig­ni­ty, moral­i­ty, ex­pres­sion, sov­er­eign­ty, and Venezue­lan in­de­pen­dence to de­clare this woman, who crawls like a worm, per­sona non gra­ta to this Re­pub­lic, which is the cra­dle of lib­er­a­tors, which is the cra­dle of free men and women,” said Venezue­lan Na­tion­al As­sem­bly pres­i­dent Jorge Ro­dríguez.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar dis­missed the des­ig­na­tion as a “use­less de­c­la­ra­tion,” re­spond­ing with a point­ed rhetor­i­cal ques­tion: “Venezue­lans are flee­ing Venezuela by the mil­lions, so why would they think I would want to go there?”

She al­so turned her crit­i­cism in­ward, ac­cus­ing Cari­com of fail­ing to sup­port T&T. La­belling the re­gion­al bloc an “un­re­li­able part­ner,” the Prime Min­is­ter sig­nalled a sharp shift in tone and raised ques­tions about the strength of re­gion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty in mo­ments of cri­sis.

The Gov­ern­ment al­so in­sist­ed the US naval pres­ence was tied to se­cu­ri­ty co­op­er­a­tion and an­ti-nar­cotics op­er­a­tions. Even so, un­ease grew that the coun­try was be­ing drawn in­to a con­fronta­tion not of its mak­ing.

Cara­cas re­spond­ed force­ful­ly. Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro ac­cused T&T of pro­vok­ing war, while se­nior Venezue­lan of­fi­cials warned the coun­try would “suf­fer con­se­quences” if it al­lowed it­self to be used as a stag­ing ground for US ag­gres­sion.

As ten­sions es­ca­lat­ed, the US Em­bassy tem­porar­i­ly closed and height­ened its se­cu­ri­ty pos­ture. T&T’s armed forces were placed on stand­by amid warn­ings of pos­si­ble es­ca­la­tion.

The at­mos­phere had al­ready been in­flamed by Unit­ed States mil­i­tary strikes in the Caribbean that left two T&T na­tion­als—Chad “Char­po” Joseph and Rishi Sama­roo—dead. Venezuela Vice Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­driguez de­scribed the in­ci­dent as a self-ful­fill­ing prophe­cy fol­low­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s “kill them all vi­o­lent­ly” rhetoric.

At home, the deaths trig­gered pub­lic out­rage and in­ten­si­fied scruti­ny of the Gov­ern­ment’s prox­im­i­ty to a deep­en­ing con­flict be­tween Wash­ing­ton and Cara­cas.

Ini­tial si­lence from au­thor­i­ties drew sharp crit­i­cism from the vic­tims’ fam­i­lies. When the Gov­ern­ment even­tu­al­ly re­spond­ed, For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers re­ject­ed claims that the deaths were linked to mil­i­tary ac­tion.

“When the Gov­ern­ment says there is no ev­i­dence to sug­gest that these per­sons were killed by a strike pur­suant to mil­i­tary in­ter­ven­tion, we say that be­cause it is a fact,” he said.

“There is no ev­i­dence to sug­gest that they were killed by a mil­i­tary strike.”

As for­eign pol­i­cy crises un­fold­ed, vi­o­lence at home con­tin­ued un­abat­ed.

Oc­to­ber opened with a se­ries of brazen crimes, even un­der a State of Emer­gency. Po­lice shot and killed 52-year-old Alvin Bharath and his 28-year-old son Avin­dra dur­ing a raid at a Cunu­pia church. Days lat­er, a dead­ly home in­va­sion in Ste Madeleine left 48-year-old Grace­lyn Ram­baran and her 25-year-old son Randy Ram­per­sad dead. Her hus­band Vi­jay Ram­per­sad was crit­i­cal­ly in­jured, while Randy’s wife was al­so wound­ed.

Mid-month, the dis­cov­ery of miss­ing busi­ness­man Im­raz Ali’s body in­ten­si­fied pub­lic anx­i­ety.

“Mr Ali was a mem­ber of our wider cen­tral Trinidad busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, and this crim­i­nal act is a sig­nif­i­cant blow to the sense of se­cu­ri­ty that busi­ness own­ers face,” said Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber pres­i­dent Bal­dath Ma­haraj.

Gov­ern­ment re­spons­es hard­ened. Calls to “try them as adults” gained mo­men­tum af­ter Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der com­ment­ed on the ar­rest of a 13-year-old in­volved in an at­tempt­ed prison smug­gling op­er­a­tion.

“We must now look at where we can def­i­nite­ly, in the law, treat some­one who’s of a child­ish age as an adult in a court of law be­cause of his ac­tions. We have no choice,” Alexan­der said.

De­spite emer­gency pow­ers, mur­ders con­tin­ued to mount. The State of Emer­gency was ex­tend­ed by three months on the fi­nal day of Oc­to­ber, as of­fi­cials de­fend­ed its ne­ces­si­ty.

Ahead of the bud­get, the Prime Min­is­ter re­as­signed re­spon­si­bil­i­ties across 18 min­is­te­r­i­al port­fo­lios. While few min­is­ters lost au­thor­i­ty, sev­er­al gained ex­pand­ed roles, in­clud­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar her­self, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der and oth­ers.

No­tably un­changed was Hous­ing Min­is­ter David Lee, who was re-ar­rest­ed on con­spir­a­cy and mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice charges pre­vi­ous­ly dropped. The Prime Min­is­ter con­tin­ued to back him.

The con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing Lee dates back to Sep­tem­ber 2022, when the then-Pointe-a-Pierre MP and busi­ness­man Hugh Leong Poi were charged with con­spir­ing to de­fraud the State of $1.4 mil­lion in tax­es linked to the im­por­ta­tion of a $2 mil­lion Mer­cedes-Benz G63 AMG. Pros­e­cu­tors al­leged that Lee false­ly claimed own­er­ship of the ve­hi­cle in or­der to ben­e­fit from par­lia­men­tary tax ex­emp­tions.

Oc­to­ber al­so saw the ap­point­ment of Don Po­lo as Chief of De­fence Staff, lat­er pro­mot­ed from Cap­tain to Com­modore, re­plac­ing Air Vice Mar­shal Dar­ryl Daniel in a move crit­ics de­scribed as abrupt.

Lat­er in the month, the coun­try’s ninth Chief Jus­tice, Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh, was ap­point­ed less than 24 hours af­ter his pre­de­ces­sor, Ivor Archie, an­nounced his res­ig­na­tion, prompt­ing Op­po­si­tion crit­i­cism.

Oc­to­ber ex­posed the depth of eco­nom­ic strain as the Gov­ern­ment un­veiled its $59.232 bil­lion bud­get, a fis­cal pack­age that mixed tar­get­ed re­lief with fresh bur­dens. Ed­u­ca­tion and train­ing re­ceived the largest al­lo­ca­tion at $8.766 bil­lion, fol­lowed by health at $8.214 bil­lion and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty at $6.366 bil­lion.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo al­so sig­nalled the start of wage ne­go­ti­a­tions with the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion at 10 per cent, a move PSA pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas wel­comed as long over­due af­ter years of stag­na­tion.

But the re­lief was un­even and, for many, short-lived. While VAT was re­moved from ba­sic food items and fu­el prices eased mar­gin­al­ly with a $1 re­duc­tion on Su­per gas, the bud­get al­so in­tro­duced new pres­sures. Du­ties were in­creased on al­co­hol and cig­a­rettes, Na­tion­al In­sur­ance con­tri­bu­tions were set to rise, a land­lord busi­ness sur­charge was im­posed, traf­fic penal­ties were ex­pand­ed and an as­set levy tar­get­ed banks and in­sur­ance com­pa­nies.

Eco­nom­ic anx­i­ety deep­ened with the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to al­lo­cate $7 mil­lion to wind up the Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP), cit­ing in­ef­fi­cien­cy and cor­rup­tion. For thou­sands of work­ers, the an­nounce­ment trans­lat­ed in­to sud­den un­cer­tain­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly in com­mu­ni­ties where CEPEP wages had long func­tioned as a so­cial safe­ty net. The Prime Min­is­ter moved to calm fears, point­ing to a na­tion­al re­cruit­ment dri­ve that drew more than 110,000 ap­pli­ca­tions.

Over­lay­ing the fis­cal de­bate was a broad­er po­lit­i­cal dis­pute. The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment ar­gued the bud­get favoured po­lit­i­cal­ly aligned lo­cal cor­po­ra­tions while tight­en­ing al­lo­ca­tions in ar­eas un­der op­po­si­tion con­trol. The Gov­ern­ment re­ject­ed the charge, main­tain­ing that its spend­ing de­ci­sions were dri­ven by na­tion­al pri­or­i­ties rather than par­ti­san con­sid­er­a­tions.

Fur­ther com­pound­ing the sense of in­sta­bil­i­ty was a steady thin­ning of lead­er­ship across key state agen­cies. Haz­ar Ho­sein, CEO of the Land Set­tle­ment Agency, re­signed af­ter 26 years with the or­gan­i­sa­tion. His de­par­ture fol­lowed ear­li­er ex­its by WASA CEO Kei­throy Hal­l­i­day, Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um’s chief ex­ec­u­tive Erik Kesku­la, TSTT head Kent West­ern, FCB Group CEO Karen Dar­basie, Na­tion­al En­er­gy pres­i­dent Ver­non Pal­too and Caribbean Air­lines CEO Garvin Med­era, re­in­forc­ing con­cerns about in­sti­tu­tion­al con­ti­nu­ity at a mo­ment of mount­ing eco­nom­ic pres­sure.

Na­ture de­liv­ered its own warn­ing in Oc­to­ber, com­pound­ing an al­ready un­set­tled na­tion­al mood. Flood­ing in­un­dat­ed parts of Mara­cas and Williamsville, while a rare tor­na­do cut through West­moor­ings, leav­ing dam­age in its wake and rais­ing fresh ques­tions about pre­pared­ness in the face of ex­treme weath­er.

Flood­ing al­so damp­ened Di­vali cel­e­bra­tions.

In one wide­ly re­port­ed mo­ment of col­lec­tive re­lief, res­i­dents and po­lice worked to­geth­er to res­cue eight-year-old Abi­gail Joseph af­ter she was swept away by flood­wa­ters near her East Dry Riv­er home.

Be­yond T&T’s shores, the re­gion faced a far harsh­er reck­on­ing. Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa tore through Ja­maica, Cu­ba and Haiti, killing dozens, dis­plac­ing thou­sands and leav­ing wide­spread dev­as­ta­tion. T&T was spared a di­rect hit.

At home, anx­i­ety deep­ened with an­oth­er dead­ly re­minder of do­mes­tic safe­ty risks. Twen­ty-eight-year-old Be­vaughn Joseph was killed af­ter a gas cylin­der ex­plo­sion de­stroyed their home, mark­ing the third fa­tal gas tank blast in weeks. Ear­li­er in the month, Ria George and Re­quel Bab­wah died in sep­a­rate LPG-re­lat­ed in­ci­dents.

Oc­to­ber closed with the army on high alert, warn­ings from Venezuela still hang­ing in the air and a per­va­sive sense of un­ease.