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T&T’s Prime Minister says smelter story false
Trinidad and Tobago’s Government has refuted reports that it is set to talk to President Bharrat Jagdeo to relocate a controversial aluminium smelter project to Guyana.
The twin-island’s Prime Minister, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, told reporters on Tuesday that the report by the Trinidad Express published on the same day is totally false, according to another report yesterday in the Trinidad Guardian, a daily newspaper there.
T&T Prime Minister, Kamla Persad-Bissessar
The newspaper said that President Jagdeo was “appalled and very concerned about a newspaper story in the Daily Express which claimed he was expected in T&T” to discuss the relocation of an aluminium smelter plant from La Brea in T&T to Guyana.
Presdient Jagdeo later said that a Caricom country had elected a new Prime Minister and he was merely paying her a courtesy call.
Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar, who spoke with reporters about the issue, during a news briefing at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, Mt Hope, on Tuesday said that the headline is “totally false; totally, totally false.”
“In fact, President Jagdeo, through his representative here, was very concerned when he saw that headline, because there was no such agenda. He was very appalled because he has only just recently received an award that has to do with the environment and it has placed him in a very difficult position in his own country—on something that has been totally false in a Trinidad newspaper.”
On Tuesday, the Trinidad Express said that President Bharrat Jagdeo was expected to hold talks with Trinidad and Tobago’s newly sworn-in Prime Minister, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, on a number of issues, including the prospect of relocating the aluminium smelter plant initially proposed for La Brea to Guyana.
According to the report, the discussions are expected to centre on the aluminium smelter, ethanol and hydro-electricity. Jagdeo was expected to fly from Canada, Tuesday, to Trinidad, where he was on Government business with his Minister of Housing, Irfaan Ali.
Press Secretary of the twin island republic, Garvin Nicholas, on Monday confirmed that Jagdeo would be flying in and that a meeting was “tentatively scheduled” with the Prime Minister.
Nicholas could not say what the talks would be about.
However, the Express claimed that sources said that Persad-Bissessar wants to examine the feasibility of relocating the aluminium smelter plant to Guyana.
Apart from the vast amounts of land that Guyana has, it also produces bauxite, the raw material from which aluminium is made. The other key ingredient in the manufacture of aluminium is natural gas, which Trinidad and Tobago has. And it was because that country processed this second ingredient that it had embarked on the project in the first place, the Express said in the report yesterday.
However, the project has been stalled pending the outcome of an appeal, after the High Court found the Certificate of Environmental Clearance given by the Environmental Management Authority (EMA) was deficient because it failed to consider a number of things. The EMA has appealed that judgement and the Appeal Court’s decision is pending.
But informed sources said that any cancellation of the project could cost T&T dearly. The last government entered into several agreements, including a loan agreement for US$400 million with Exim Bank of China, to facilitate the construction of the project.
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