MP Lee: If not crime, what do we judge you on Prime Minister?
Having asked citizens not to judge his government by its performance on crime in his pre-recorded interview, the Prime Minister must inform a confused population on what could be used to judge their performance given the sustained incompetence, lack of performance and neglect which have emanated from our state sectors under his leadership.
Fifty-one months after taking office, the Prime Minister’s inability to list any achievement of substance within key sectors such as education, the economy, improvement of forex supply and social services was glaring as his government simply has none.
However, even more concerning was the Prime Minister’s deluded perception that his administration “has put the energy sector in a much better place than it was in 2015” when the reality, as reported two days after he recorded his interview, is that the Energy Sector is in deep crisis.
How could the energy sector be in a better place when senior economists have estimated that there has been a loss of almost 40 percent of the employed labour force in the energy sector as CSO data shows a sharp decline in employment from 21,300 in 2014 to 12,600 as at June 2018? Even worse, the energy labour force would have fallen yet again given the closure of big employers such as YARA and Petrotrin post-June 2018.
It is erroneous and an act of pure deception that during his interview, the Prime Minister boasted that he “has negotiated better conditions” yet on Sunday, media reports stated that the crisis at Point Lisas Industrial Estate appeared to be worsening as Titan Methanol announced it may be shutting down its plant due to difficulties with natural gas negotiations, meaning even more job losses and loss of national revenue.
Never before has Point Lisas been under threat as it is now given the recent reports in the media that many existing petrochemical companies with outstanding agreements are saying that “the terms are too difficult to live with”
The Prime Minister’s statement “that he sees a bright future for the energy sector” is a pure political fallacy as under his administration, not only has critical initiatives such as the single bid round issued reportedly failed but issues of incentives have not been addressed in a timely manner.
It is clear that the narrative presented by the Prime Minister on our Energy Sector borders on fiction while the reality as reported publicly suggests that this nation’s energy sector is in dire jeopardy under this government.