T&T
gets media flogging over LNG supply 'deal'
By Andy Johnson
Trinidad Express
Kingston
Petroleumworldtt.com
03 25 07
A CARTOON in the Observer newspaper
here last Friday was the cap for a week of continuing
heated, acrimonious discussion in the public about
an allegation of dishonour by the government of
Trinidad and Tobago.
The cartoon featured two frames.
One depicting a Jamaican businessman being tied
to a tree and being shot at by someone with a bow
and a rose. That was supposed to be the case in
Trinidad.
In the other frame, depicting Jamaica,
a Trinidad businessman, briefcase in hand, walks
up the red carpet and is being presented with a
gift-wrapped cement company. "Welcome, Take
it all!", the caption has the gift giver saying.
A red-skirted female assistant who is a lampoon
of Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller
curtsies at the side of the presenter, all smiles.
This was highly illustrative of
the tenor of the discussions taking place over the
last couple weeks among the Jamaican public, about
what they believe is the treatment of their need
for reliable supplies of LNG for industrial expansion
here.
A "deal", which they have
been encouraged to believe was struck with the government
in Port of Spain, was reneged upon. They have been
making no secret of how they feel.
As that edition of the Observer
was making its way into hands on the streets, in
homes and offices Friday, presenters on the morning
drive programme on talk radio Hot 102 fm were discussing
the issue once again. The discussion was a bit more
sympathetic than the general feeling being expressed
over the issue.
Last week's episode in the writing
of a new chapter of potential hostility between
Port of Spain and Kingston began with the signing
here of an agreement between Prime Minister Simpson
and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez for the supply
of LNG. It was portrayed as a life raft for a people
cut adrift by one of its principal trading partners
in the regional integration movement. They don't
like it.
Energy Minister Phillip Paulwell
was on morning television on Tuesday saying that
the Chavez government promised it would get its
supplies moving by the agreed date. This, however,
is subject to the negotiations which are called
forth, to work out the details of what was signed
last Monday. He said he had to "take their
word for it," that they would deliver. But
the minister left a smirk on his face in the breath
before that, when he said the government in Trinidad
and Tobago had realised it did not have the capacity
to supply Jamaica, as had been anticipated by the
expectations raised in the MOA signed almost a year
ago.
Observers would be excused in reading
into his body language that he thought differently.
The signing represented for him "a very great
day for us in that we are now satisfied that all
the gas we are going to need will now be available
to Jamaica", as he was quoted in the Observer
on Tuesday.
Jamaicans
at least would also already have been encouraged
to hang on to those sentiments expressed in a column
in the Observer the very day of the Simpson-Miller/
Chavez signing by Jean Lowrie-Chin. Describing what
she divined as "The Portia Factor" in
emboldening Jamaican women to take their rightful
place in their country's leadership, she referred
to a Doreen Fankson.
Trinidad
Express
Tuesday, March 20th 2007
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