There are several things that are wrong with the failure of the Energy Chamber of Trinidad and Tobago to have not invited officials from the local private sector to its “Guyana Safety Forum” ostensibly staged to address safety interests and which was reportedly dominated by companies from the twin-island Republic. From the standpoint of protocol, to begin with, it was ‘tacky,’ rude and indelicate. Guyana, after all, was the host country for the event. The second point to be made is that as far as we can tell there has been, up until now, no apology from Trinidad’s Energy Chamber for its unacceptable rudeness and this is not the first time, one might add, that our ‘oil rich’ neighbour has extended this kind of discourtesy to us.
Thirdly, it is this newspaper’s understanding that a local journalist, upon querying the obvious anomaly of the absence of an appropriate Guyanese presence at the forum was given short shrift, the kind of sleight which, in other countries more ‘finicky’ on issues of national assertiveness, might have resulted in the premature termination of the forum.
We are told that the local private sector, including the GCCI and the PSC have had something to say about the ‘eye pass’ of the Trinidad Energy Chamber. It would be interesting to have a look see at the statement or statements ‘fired off’ to Port of Spain and whether there has been, appended, to such communication a requirement that the Trinidadians demonstrate the requisite level of contriteness for what, we repeat, is an episode of blatant eye pass.
One raises this question to raise another one. Is our local private sector sufficiently mindful of the consideration of national pride to set aside such business considerations as might arise, now or in the future, from relations with Trinidad and Tobago? Frankly, so far, it has to be said that the ill manners, and more, of the Trinidadians has not been reciprocated with the requisite level of militancy by the local Business Support Organizations.
In truth, and while one expects that, for the foreseeable future there will be no end to movement between Port of Spain and Georgetown by fortune-seeking enterprises from T&T the behaviour of that country’s Energy Chamber warrants the dispatch to Port of Spain of some sort of missive spelling out some of the fundamental protocols that ought to attend the treatment of this country and its institutions…and there is no reason why same should not be done with alacrity…after all no Guyanese business sector organization would have been allowed to get away with a faux pas of that magnitude in our sister CARICOM country.
