00:00TNT's government has maintained that it has good relations with Venezuela as it plans to undertake a diplomatic visit.
00:08But Venezuela's interim president, Delcey Rodriguez's visit to Grenada, spelled volumes when she was asked by a journalist why Grenada
00:16and not Trinidad.
00:18Trinidad is close to you.
00:19Yeah, but we have a relation with Grenada.
00:24Are you going to any other countries that you will be going to anytime soon?
00:28Not in this time. Not in this time.
00:30Former Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley says there are many questions left to be answered relating to the diplomatic delegation
00:37TNT is sending.
00:39It's his view that a country has been made a vassal state due to the United National Congress government choosing
00:46to side with the United States against former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro.
00:51The PRM has been asking, in the parliament and elsewhere, who are you talking to in Venezuela?
00:56Because we need to know. Because if the government is not talking to anybody in Venezuela, then the resources that
01:02we are after, that we have made arrangements for, and the contracts that we have with the government of Venezuela
01:08and the government of TNT, those things are at risk.
01:11Dr. Rowley says the government placed itself and by extension this country into a mess of a situation with a
01:19serious criminal allegation to Spirit Venezuela's way.
01:22What the UNC did was not just carry out a conversation against Venezuela, you know.
01:28They identified individuals and accused them of criminal conduct.
01:32And unfortunately, those individuals are now more in control of Venezuela than before.
01:38So I am waiting to see who they are going to be talking to and what the delegation is going
01:44to be made up of and what they will produce.
01:47Because in the meantime, the multilateral oil companies are busy taking what they can get and no oil company is
01:56going to be entering into contracts to give Trinidad and Tobago the best benefits of those contracts.
02:02Dr. Rowley tells us the focus of those companies is to seek the interest of their shareholders.
02:07And according to him, that was the plan under his administration by way of placing the national gas company at
02:14the center of the broker deals.
02:16And that's why they could come today and talk about the increased profits at NGC.
02:20Because we have managed, after five years of work, to restructure Atlantic energy so that NGC can earn more money.
02:28And then they come and say the earnings is there during the other 10 months.
02:31There's tomfoolery and there's serious business.
02:34There are speculations that TNT's support for the United States could redound to the country being rewarded in relation to
02:42Venezuela's oil and gas.
02:43Dr. Rowley says he is unable to make any pronouncements on that in the absence of information on what was
02:50agreed to between the two countries.
02:52But I could tell you, in matters of this nature, there's nobody out there taking responsibility for us when we
03:02don't take responsibility for ourselves.
03:04That, we better understand that.
03:07Nobody's going to give us anything.
03:09If we are useful to them, we are welcome.
03:14The minute we are not useful, we have to understand that they are off looking for new, useful areas.
03:21And unfortunately, in some quarters, Chendai and Tobago is being viewed as being useful areas to people who have other
03:29agendas that are not in keeping with our interests.
03:32The former prime minister says there are no substitutes for sovereign-to-sovereign arrangements.
03:39Alicia Boucher, TV6 News.
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