While for­mer prime min­is­ter and ex-en­er­gy min­is­ter Stu­art Young has ac­cused Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of tak­ing full cred­it for the pro­duc­tion-shar­ing con­tract (PSC) with Exxon­Mo­bil, the Prime Min­is­ter ap­peared un­fazed.

Though she did not re­spond di­rect­ly to Young’s re­marks, Per­sad-Bisses­sar told re­porters yes­ter­day at TSTT’s Fu­ture Lead­ers In­tern­ship func­tion at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre that she was fo­cused on the po­ten­tial ben­e­fits of the agree­ment.

"Look, we live in a coun­try of free speech, every­body has their opin­ion. My opin­ion is that this is a great op­por­tu­ni­ty for Trinidad and To­ba­go. The naysay­ers, you will al­ways have them,” she said in re­sponse to ques­tions about whether she be­lieved the crit­i­cism was po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed.