2 weeks ago
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Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar.
- Photo by Faith AyoungTHE Opposition PNM has again criticised Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar for repeating her claims about the party being tied to drug trafficking.
In a Facebook post on January 5, Diego Martin Central MP Symon de Nobriga said Persad-Bissessar's claims were repeated on Facebook and X recently.
He described the repetition of this claim as a deliberate attempt by Persad-Bissessar to distract the population from the failures of her government since it won the April 28, 2025 general election.
De Nobriga said it is unfortunate this is happening as events continue to unfold in Venezuela after US forces captured and extracted its president Nicolas Maduro from a fortified compound in Caracas on January 3.
Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores appeared in a New York court on January 5 to answer drug and other criminal charges against them.
De Nobriga said, "At a time when the region is facing instability and regional leaders are speaking directly to their people, when our citizens are anxious, when questions are being asked about Venezuela, security, energy and our international standing, the Prime Minister has refused to properly address the nation.
He added, "She has avoided direct engagement with the media, press conferences have been abruptly ended when confronted with difficult questions and she has chosen instead to hide behind social media posts and innuendo."
Opposition Leader Pennelope Beckles has previously dismissed Persad-Bissessar's claims and told her to take any evidence she has on this matter to the police. De Nobriga repeated this position.
The opposition, de Nobriga continued, will not be intimidated.
"We will not be silenced and we will not allow lies to replace truth."
In a post on X on January 4, Persad-Bissessar repeated that TT played no role in the US attack on Venezuela on January 3.
She also repeated TT looks forward to renewed co-operation and strengthening of its longstanding relationship with the Venezuelan people.
On the indictment against Maduro, Persad-Bissessar said she was not surprised Caribbean politicians were implicated. She believed many "respectable" and "celebrated" people across all sectors of society will be exposed.
No Caribbean politician was identified by name in the indictment.
On the Dragon gas project, Persad-Bissessar said this gas belonged to the Venezuelan people. She added whoever is the next Venezuelan leader chosen by free and fair elections, will decide the future of that gas.
She added, "We will work with work with what we possess and endeavour to build on it."
At a news conference at UNC headquarters in Chaguanas, Foreign and Caricom Affairs Minister Sean Sobers could not say whether TT could secure a long term arrangement to explore and develop Venezuela's Dragon gas field after the capture and extraction of Maduro from Venezuela on January 3.
"The OFAC situation is something that is continuous. Developing the Dragon gas... Cocuina-Manakin...Loran/Manatee...they are all continuously developing situations."
Following a meeting in Washington, DC, between Persad-Bissessar and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, on September 30, 2025, TT was granted a six-month licence from the US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) for Venezuela's Dragon gas project.
This was outlined in statements later that day by the Office of the Prime Minister and the US State Department about agreement being reached to continuing TT-Venezuela cross-border energy initiatives, which began under the former PNM administration.
The State Department specifically identified the Dragon gas project in its statement.
The former PNM administration had secured a 30-year licence to explore and develop Dragon in December 2023. This licence was scrapped in April after Trump won the November 2024 US presidential election. Also scrapped was an OFAC licence for the Cocuina-Manakin project.
Last year, the Venezuelan government cut energy ties with TT because of government's support for the ongoing US military deployment in the Southern Caribbean. Then Venezuelan Vice-President (now interim president) Delcy Rodriguez vowed TT would not receive a single molecule of her nation's natural gas because of its support for the US.
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