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OPPOSITION Senator Faris Al-Rawi has warned that government's failure to properly address tensions with Venezuela can have a disastrous effect on the economy. Al-Rawi sounded this warning during his contribution to the budget debate in the Senate on October 28. He referred to an announcement earlier in the day by Venezuelan Vice-President Delcy Rodriguez that a proposal will be made to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro for "the denunciation of the energy cooperation framework agreement between Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela." Rodriguez, Al-Rawi continued, also said a request will be made to Maduro to suspend all bilateral gas agreements with TT. He said most citizens are mistaking these comments to be linked to Venezuela's Dragon gas project, agreed to under the former PNM administration, initially rejected by the UNC after it won the April 28 general election but later accepted after gaining a six-month Office of Foreign Assets (OFAC) licence from the US Treasury Department on October 8, to negotiate with Venezuela for the resumption of that project. Al-Rawi said, "The big ticket item is the Loran Manatee field." He reminded senators this was one of three fields TT has been in discussion with Venezuela about for some time. The other two fields are Dragon and Cocuina-Manakin Al-Rawi said, "The framework agreement contemplates a unitisation agreement for the Loran Manatee field." Under this agreement, he continued, 73 per cent belongs to Venezuela and the remaining 27 per cent is TT's. Al-Rawi said there is also agreement within the broader framework agreement for TT to be able to access its 27 per cent of gas and leave the remaining 73 per cent for Venezuela. Public Administration Minister Dominic Smith questioned the relevance of this to the budget. Al-Rawi reminded all senators the gas in Manatee is proven natural gas. He said this gas is about to come to market and the prospect of this is what is keeping investment alive in the energy sector. Al-Rawi told senators that energy sector investors "only stay here if they have line of sight on gas." In the absence of this, he warned, "You run the risk of a cancellation of the project which means our economy falls flat." Al-Rawi said no one in TT can dispute the fact the petrochemical sector remains the lifeblood of the economy. He added the pronouncements out of Venezuela are something which all right-thinking citizens must be concerned about it. Al-Rawi said, "Do I want this? Am I celebrating about this? Not at all." As a citizen, he continued, he wanted government to act quickly, decisively and with diplomacy to bring all the players back to the negotiating table in short order. On the relevance of Rodriguez's statements to TT, Al-Rawi said if this situation comes to pass, government's projections of increased revenue from oil and natural gas royalties and increased dividends from state enterprises would disappear. He reminded senators, the state enterprises from which the latter would come include the National Gas Company (NGC) and National Energy Corporation. Al-Rawi also questioned how anyone could believe the UNC was committed to education and young people when several initiatives related to them were curtailed in the budget. He said this evidence of this was to be found in a $45 million cut in the On-the Job Training (OJT) programme, a $4.4 millions slash on remedial education and a $10 million cut to the school feeding programme. Al-Rawi reminded senators that during last week's meeting of the Standing Finance Committee of the House of Representatives, Tertiary Education Minister Prof Prakash Persad confirmed the OJT reduction.
