Despite fluctuating oil and gas prices, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar promises there will not no cutback of jobs and development programmes if the People’s Partnership is re-elected into Government this year.
Speaking at a Monday Night Forum celebrating the fifth anniversary of the Fyzabad Accord which brought the five-party coalition together in 2010, she committed to continue spending money on crime fighting measures, education, infrastructural development programmes, home distribution and healthcare.
She said even though the falling energy prices caused Government to reassess its fiscal package based on a US$45 per barrel price of oil, the country had recorded a $386 million surplus in the first quarter of 2015.
Among the infrastructural projects on the cards are the construction of a highway from San Fernando to Mayaro and construction of the country’s first causeway from Port-of-Spain to Chaguaramas, which she said would be done in partnership with the Canadian government, and the purchase of security vessels for the Coast Guard, which she discussed with the Chinese government last night.
She assured that there was no energy crisis in T&T as told by Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley at an Energy Chamber conference last week.
Boasting of tomorrow’s visit of Ben van Beurden, CEO Royal Dutch Shell, she said he had already pledged to invest in T&T. She also boasted that the $850 million dimethyl ether (DME) plant in La Brea, a merger between Neal and Massy Ltd and the Mitsubishi Corporation, would raise US$1 billion in revenue and create 2000 jobs in the construction sector.