Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has stat­ed she can­not di­vulge de­tails con­cern­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions for nat­ur­al gas sup­ply in­volv­ing the gov­ern­ment due to con­fi­den­tial­i­ty claus­es.

The Prime Min­is­ter was re­spond­ing to a ques­tion posed to her by MP and for­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter Stu­art Young dur­ing Prime Min­is­ter’s Ques­tions in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day.

Young asked, “Would the Prime Min­is­ter ad­vise how many writ­ten com­mer­cial of­fers for gas sup­ply, which in­clude vol­umes of gas to be sup­plied, price of the gas and length of con­tract, be­yond 2025 and for longer than six months, have been sent by NGC to the petro­chem­i­cal pro­duc­ers to date and to which com­pa­nies?”

In re­sponse, the Prime Min­is­ter not­ed strict oblig­a­tions of con­fi­den­tial­i­ty be­tween the par­ties in­volved.

“Port-of-Spain North, St Ann’s West well knows that these con­tract ne­go­ti­a­tions, both on the up­stream and the down­stream, and the terms be­ing ne­go­ti­at­ed are the sub­ject of strict oblig­a­tions of con­fi­den­tial­i­ty be­tween the par­ties,” she said. “If the mem­ber is not aware of these oblig­a­tions, clear­ly it rep­re­sents the reck­less man­ner in which such ne­go­ti­a­tions were un­der­tak­en by him­self and the past ad­min­is­tra­tion.”

She added, “My gov­ern­ment re­spects our oblig­a­tions to our down­stream­ers and up­stream­ers. We have no in­ten­tion of breach­ing con­trac­tu­al oblig­a­tions and when these ne­go­ti­a­tions are com­plet­ed pub­lic state­ments will be made by all par­ties.”

There has been grow­ing scruti­ny of the gov­ern­ment’s en­gage­ment with en­er­gy sec­tor stake­hold­ers fol­low­ing the shut down of op­er­a­tions at Nu­trien’s Point Lisas plants in Oc­to­ber as well as the dis­missal of sev­er­al se­nior of­fi­cials in state agen­cies un­der the um­brel­la of the NGC group of com­pa­nies.