The Gov­ern­ment’s han­dling of an off­shore oil spill in the Gulf of Paria has come un­der scruti­ny, with the Op­po­si­tion and a po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst rais­ing con­cerns about de­layed dis­clo­sure, ac­count­abil­i­ty and the po­ten­tial diplo­mat­ic fall­out in an al­ready sen­si­tive re­la­tion­ship with neigh­bour­ing Venezuela.

Mean­while, ef­forts to ob­tain a com­ment from Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar were un­suc­cess­ful yes­ter­day, as she re­ferred all ques­tions on the mat­ter to En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal.

While Mooni­lal yes­ter­day sought to down­play the in­ci­dent, dis­miss­ing it as a mi­nor, quick­ly con­tained event and in­sist­ing there was no cause for alarm, for­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter and Op­po­si­tion mem­ber Stu­art Young ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment and Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny Ltd of at­tempt­ing to con­ceal what he de­scribed as a sig­nif­i­cant en­vi­ron­men­tal in­ci­dent.