Noble: Our leaders are writing bad cheques—T&T can only ignore reality for so long

This week, two quotes came to mind as I read the local newspapers. The first was from Benjamin Franklin, who was accused of treason (by leaking letters) in 1774. These letters criticised the colonial rebels even though it was clear that his own loyalties were to the American colonies.

He reportedly said: “Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools that don’t have brains enough to be honest.”

We are increasingly reading of actions that are cast in the vein of treason. But are these actions treasonous or simple criticism that all citizens are entitled to do?

The second quote comes from a movie called Top Gun. In this movie, there was a young, reckless pilot who delighted in taking chances.

His more experienced leader said: “Maverick, you just did an incredibly brave thing. What you should have done was land your plane! You don’t own that plane, the taxpayers do! Son, your ego is writing checks your body can’t cash.”

Each day, we are seeing our leaders writing cheques that will bounce. Instead of doing the simple and right things, they attempt to mislead us into alleys from which extrication is costly.

Let us examine the hot topic of the Loran Manatee field.

The Attorney General, who professes to be a simple lawyer but who is centre stage with the OFAC licences and presumably understands contract law, affirmed that the exploitation of that field is entirely a matter for Trinidad.

One can understand his desire for the exploitation of the field, but he misleads himself and the nation.

The history of the field has been a long and winding road. However, in 2013, Kevin Ramnarine clearly stated the parameters. He said: “The Loran-Manatee field-specific treaty distributes the volumes in the Loran-Manatee Field Unit area into 73.06 per cent for Venezuela and 26.94 per cent for T&T.

“The 73.06 per cent of the field on the Venezuelan side in their Block 2 (referred to as Loran) is the property of the Venezuelans, and it is their sovereign right to determine how it is to be monetised and where it is to be monetised.

“The 26.94 per cent of the field on the Trinidadian side in our Block 6d (referred to as Manatee) is the property of T&T, and it is our sovereign right to determine how it is to be monetised and where it is to be monetised.”

He said there is a right of veto, stating that both governments must agree on the decisions of the Directing Committee: “If there is a decision that we are not in agreement with, we can veto that decision, and in like manner, the Venezuelans can exercise a similar veto.”

No matter how anxious Minister Roodal Moonilal may be to instruct Shell to develop the field, the reality is that at this stage, Venezuela has put a veto on any exploitation.

The Venezuelan Vice-President Delcy Rodriguez made a motion for “the denunciation of the energy cooperation framework agreement between Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela.”

Minister Moonilal’s whistling will not work.  Stuart Young hit the nail on the head: “Whilst the 2019 agreement allows us to produce Manatee in a deunitised manner, it still requires Venezuela’s consent and relies on an agreement that was entered into with Venezuela.”

The stark reality is revealed in the words of a Proman executive against this backdrop: The 2024 average through October was 2.5 billion cubic feet per day, according to the latest data from Trinidad and Tobago’s Ministry of Energy.

A decade ago, the country produced more than 4 billion cubic feet per day. According to Gas Outlook, the long-term decline translates into routine supply curtailments to Trinidad’s industries, including numerous methanol and ammonia plants that supply global markets.

“We face a daily challenge with gas supply and most of our plants run at reduced utilisation rates,” said Ricardo Mohammed, executive director for group operations at petrochemicals giant Proman.

He noted that many of these are vintage plants that are difficult and costly to retrofit for greener production.

No amount of misleading information about our ability to bring the Loran Manatee gas ashore will help this situation. It is possible that this fantasy contributed to the recent fiasco involving the National Gas Company and Nutrien.

However, this action is akin to whistling in the dark while walking through a cemetery. Kitchener had a lot to say about this in his famous calypso Love in the Cemetery.

“When a voice said, ‘Mister, yuh brave/To be bringin’ yuh girlfriend on top meh grave’…”

It is a pity that the words of Dr Keith Rowley were not heeded. In early October, he urged the current administration to approach the next phase of the Dragon negotiations with humility, cautioning that the gains so far resulted from persistent lobbying and strategic engagement with international partners.

Then came the unbelievable words from Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar that we are not in a zone of peace. She deliberately conflated the crime situation in our country (as though Jamaica and Barbados do not have crime challenges) with the declaration of the zone of peace.

This is not a genuine statement from someone who, in 2014, signed a document on our behalf asserting the same at the II Celac Summit of Heads of State and Government in Havana, Cuba. A newsletter that is partial to the United National Congress (UNC), her party, noted the signing.

What is a zone of peace? It is a designation rooted in international law.

It should be noted that on 30 June 1978, at the Tenth Special Assembly of the United Nations General Assembly, a resolution was adopted which called for and authorised “the establishment of zones of peace in various regions of the world under appropriate conditions to be clearly defined and determined freely by the States concerned in the zone, taking into account the characteristics of the zone and the principles of the Charter of the United Nations and in conformity with international law……”

The assembly declared that ending the arms race and achieving disarmament were of primary importance for international security, development, and peace.

In an address to the United Nations General Assembly not long after he took power in 1979, Grenada’s then-Prime Minister Maurice Bishop said:

“We join with our sister Caribbean nations in re-emphasising our determination to preserve the Caribbean as a zone of peace, free from military intimidation. We demand the right to build our own processes in our own way, free from outside interference, free from bullying and free from the use or threat of force.”

In 1986, Prime Minister Errol Barrow declared in a historic address to the opening ceremony of the Caricom Heads of Government conference in Guyana as follows:-

“My position remains clear that the Caribbean must be recognised and respected as a zone of peace… I have said, and I repeat that while I am Prime Minister of Barbados, our territory will not be used to intimidate any of our neighbours: be that neighbour Cuba or the USA.

“And I do not believe that size is necessarily the only criterion for determining these matters. It is important to let people know where you stand… in what is a moral commitment to peace in our region.”

Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar was not misled or misinformed about what she was signing at the Celac Summit. She is now gaslighting us by conflating the local challenges with the longstanding regional position. Why?

She then goes further to characterise the Caricom alliance as “unreliable partners” because they sided with Venezuela:

“I do not consider Caricom a reliable partner, and over the next couple of years, there will be a significant realignment of our foreign policy. These changes are necessary for improving our economic and physical security.”

This characterisation of “siding with Venezuela” ignores the fact that there are to be no nuclear arms in the region. The troublesome “zone of peace” that we, through her, signed up for in 2014. Eyes wide open.

Our relationship with Caricom and Venezuela has had its bumpy moments. We should consider the divisive entry of PetroCaribe into the region.

There was a consistent complaint that Trinidad was unwilling to lower its oil prices, and secondly, that those prices enabled Trinidadian manufacturers to gain a competitive advantage in the Caricom region.

PetroCaribe did not offer cheap oil, as Venezuela’s OPEC obligations prohibit sales at below market value.

Instead, its innovative approach allows area countries to defer part of the payment. The deal functions through a discount, whereby contracting countries are required to pay a percentage of the market price, with the remaining cost converted into long-term, low-interest loans.

Additionally, Venezuela has created a USD 60 million fund for social projects in Jamaica. Antigua and Barbuda’s then-Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer enthused that: “The current crippling impact of continually rising energy costs on our fragile economies is a current case in point.

“Venezuela’s offer of stable fuel supplies on concessionary terms through the PetroCaribe initiative is therefore a timely–and welcome–intervention for member countries of the Caribbean Community.”

Then-Prime Minister Keith Mitchell of Grenada pointed to a total annual savings of between USD 10 million and USD 15 million as a result of the Venezuelan deal.

Stephen Kangal, a noted international affairs commentator, pointed out in July 2005: “We also need to be friendly with Venezuela to promote our future maritime boundary relations with Barbados, Grenada and Guyana.

“The sensitivity of our relations with Venezuela cannot be shrouded in the secrecy of the Cabinet because the future expansion of our world-class energy industry depends on it.

“Should the energy interests of the USA change, it will dump T&T as it has done with other countries that considered themselves allies of the USA. That is the nature and modus operandi of the capitalist beast.”

What did Patrick Manning do? Speaking in Georgetown, Guyana, at the Caricom Secretariat in Liliendaal in 2006, Manning said: “First of all, there isn’t much room for emotions in the conduct of regional affairs. Whether one is upset is of absolutely no significance.

“What was important is how countries relate to each other, and on the Petro Caribe arrangement, there were some distinct negatives for the oil industry in T&T.”

Noting the fluctuations in the oil price, Manning said that countries in the region, which are essentially oil-importing countries, were faced with extremely high oil import bills. As such: “the Petro Caribe arrangement has to be attractive to countries that find themselves in this position.”

He said it was not a one-sided issue by any means, as there were real benefits to the region that would arise from the deal.

This, he said, was one of the reasons the discussions were necessary. We should recall that Manning was dealing with the likes of PJ Patterson of Jamaica and Barbados’s Errol Barrow. We saw big men able to disagree and still hold together.

A review of trade data between Jamaica (the most dominant player) and Trinidad reveals a significant decline in the import of oil-related products. On the other hand, we saw food products soar from 5 per cent (2008) to 23 per cent (2022) of total exports to Jamaica. Even that road was not smooth sailing.

In 2012, the gifted Marcia Forbes, in a succinct article, noted the trials. Her summary does not tell the nitty-gritty struggles. The politicians talked but did nothing. The business leaders worked to resolve the issues. As our mothers would say: “Tongue and teeth would always quarrel”.

The growth in Trinidad’s food product sales was seeded by Bermudez’s capital investment and its willingness to engage the Jamaica Manufacturing Association and significant Jamaican opinion leaders. Now that is bearing fruit. Are we prepared to discard that hard work?

Then came Mrs Persad-Bissessar’s infamous words: “We cannot continue that Trinidad and Tobago is like an ATM card.”

A Jamaica Observer poll found that just over 45 per cent of respondents found Persad-Bissessar’s “ATM” comments “an honest wake-up call for Caricom”, 44 per cent found the comments “arrogant”, and 10 per cent thought them “a rookie mistake by an inexperienced politician”.

The full context of this comment is rooted in regional security matters. More anon.

For our trade minister and the Trinidad and Tobago Manufacturers’ Association (TTMA) CEO to believe that the rejection of Trinidadian goods will not occur is akin to whistling in the dark.

It is particularly disheartening that the TTMA CEO has joined in this assessment, given that he is aware of what transpired after the first Persad-Bissessar remarks. He knows, or should know, that there were attempts by ordinary Jamaicans to return products to the sellers.

Are there any of our leaders willing to share with us the reality of life? Do they all live in la-la land?

“We can ignore reality, but we cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.” Ayn Rand