Young challenges Moonilal on Venezuela relations

For­mer En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young has ac­cused the UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion of at­tempt­ing to “rewrite his­to­ry” over Trinidad and To­ba­go’s re­la­tion­ship with Venezuela, fol­low­ing com­ments by En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal.

Young said the Gov­ern­ment should not at­tempt to dis­tance it­self from what he de­scribed as a de­te­ri­o­ra­tion in re­la­tions be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and Venezuela.

His com­ments came af­ter Mooni­lal said Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers had done “a ma­jor job” re­pair­ing what he de­scribed as dam­age caused by the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion to re­la­tions with the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment and peo­ple.

Young re­ject­ed that claim, say­ing bi­lat­er­al re­la­tions un­der pre­vi­ous PNM ad­min­is­tra­tions had been “strong, sta­ble and re­spect­ful”, with no de­c­la­ra­tions of Venezue­lan of­fi­cials be­ing “per­sona non gra­ta”.

He al­so ac­cused Mooni­lal and Per­sad-Bisses­sar of pre­vi­ous­ly at­tack­ing Venezue­lan Act­ing Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez and call­ing for sanc­tions against for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Young over their han­dling of re­la­tions with Venezuela.

“It is the Kam­la Per­sad Bisses­sar UNC gov­ern­ment” that Young said should ac­cept re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for any de­te­ri­o­ra­tion in gov­ern­men­tal re­la­tions be­tween the two coun­tries.

Young’s post then turned per­son­al, as he ques­tioned Mooni­lal’s health and called on au­thor­i­ties to in­ter­vene.

He de­scribed Mooni­lal as a “failed Min­is­ter of En­er­gy” and said he was “des­per­ate­ly try­ing to hold on to the ti­tle”.

Young al­so called for Mooni­lal to un­der­go a “cog­ni­tive and men­tal health test”, sug­gest­ing this would help him cope when he is even­tu­al­ly re­moved from the En­er­gy Min­istry.

The com­ments were made in a so­cial me­dia post ac­com­pa­ny­ing a video of Mooni­lal dis­cussing the Gov­ern­ment’s diplo­mat­ic ef­forts with Venezuela.

Mooni­lal has not re­spond­ed to Young’s re­marks in the ma­te­r­i­al pro­vid­ed.