In a sharp rebuke issued yesterday, former Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Stuart Young has levied serious accusations against the current People’s National Movement (UNC)-led government, claiming it is orchestrating a systematic campaign of political persecution against the People’s National Movement (PNM). Young has publicly called on the ruling administration to uphold constitutional principles and address all alleged wrongdoing exclusively through established legal frameworks and due process. Young frames the coordinated push against the PNM as far more than a partisan dispute, arguing that it represents a fundamental threat to the nation’s democratic foundations. In his statement distributed to local media outlets, Young threw his full support behind a previous address by PNM chairman Marvin Gonzales, who first publicly denounced the string of political attacks targeting the opposition party.
“I unreservedly condemn these unprincipled attacks,” Young stated in the release. He emphasized that while any proven illegal activity or corrupt behavior must be properly investigated and sanctioned, these actions must follow formal legal protocols, free from partisan political meddling. “Make no mistake about it: this is a direct attack on the core of our democracy,” Young added. He doubled down on his claims, confirming that the UNC administration has carried out deliberate, targeted political persecution and victimization of PNM members and affiliates for an extended period.
As key evidence of the government’s targeting, Young pointed to mass terminations of thousands of low-income and vulnerable workers employed through state-run programs including CEPEP, URP, and national reforestation initiatives, as well as layoffs across dozens of state-owned entities spanning multiple ministries, energy giants Heritage Petroleum and Paria Fuel Trading, the National Gas Company, National Energy, Phoenix Park Gas Processors Ltd, the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA), the Housing Development Corporation (HDC), and the Trinidad and Tobago Electricity Commission (T&TEC). He argued that the UNC leadership is deliberately diverting public attention from core governance failures with misleading rhetoric and distraction tactics, warning that the country is entering one of the most perilous periods in its modern political history.
Beyond the political targeting claims, Young sounded a urgent alarm over the nation’s growing fiscal instability, revealing that the ruling government has withdrawn more than US$500 million from the country’s critical Heritage and Stabilisation Fund (HSF) over the past 12 months without any public transparency or advance notification to citizens. He also noted that the administration has taken on more than US$1.8 billion in new high-interest foreign currency debt, at a time when the country’s foreign exchange earnings are declining. “Our overall national indebtedness has reached a dangerously high threshold,” Young asserted. “Even a single late payment or default on any state-backed loan could push us over a fiscal cliff with devastating long-term consequences.”
Young, who previously served as the country’s energy minister, also warned that the nation’s critical energy sector is currently facing a deepening crisis, noting that two of the country’s largest petrochemical producers, Nutrien and Methanex, have completely ceased operations in recent months. He added that the current government has also failed to participate in critical cross-border natural gas negotiations with neighboring Venezuela in Caracas, adding that this is just one of many growing warning signs threatening the nation’s key economic driver.
In a related development yesterday, PNM Treasurer and former government minister Robert Le Hunte pushed back against recent government claims about the cost of the party’s new Balisier House headquarters in Port of Spain, describing the published figures as “grossly exaggerated”. In a telephone interview with media, Le Hunte rejected the ruling administration’s claim that the party has spent some TT$118 million on constructing the new facility. Le Hunte stated that based on his professional assessment, the cited price point is wildly inflated for the size and scope of the building in question. He also confirmed that he has not been given access to any of the documentation the state is referencing as part of its ongoing investigation into the source of funding for the construction project.