Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries Dr Roodal Mooni­lal has de­fend­ed his ab­sence from the del­e­ga­tion ac­com­pa­ny­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to the 51st Reg­u­lar Meet­ing of the Con­fer­ence of Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment in St Lu­cia, in­sist­ing min­is­ters should on­ly trav­el when their port­fo­lios re­quire it.

Speak­ing with re­porters at the Debe Hin­du SDMS Pri­ma­ry School yes­ter­day, Mooni­lal dis­missed crit­i­cism over his ab­sence, say­ing there was no need for him to at­tend the re­gion­al sum­mit and ac­cus­ing crit­ics of be­ing ac­cus­tomed to the trav­el prac­tices of the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion.

He ques­tioned what he de­scribed as a “fix­a­tion” over whether the En­er­gy Min­is­ter should be on every over­seas en­gage­ment. “I think this coun­try got ac­cus­tomed to Stu­art Young and (Dr Kei­th) Row­ley kind of trav­els and be­lieve that the En­er­gy Min­is­ter must trav­el with the Prime Min­is­ter any­where she goes,” he said.