PM’S SPAIN-UK FLIGHT

Both Prime Minister Patrick Manning and Spanish energy major, Repsol, cannot be right with respect to their clearly differing positions on whether the Prime Minister flew to London from Madrid on a commercial flight as Repsol insists, after his meeting with company officials in Spain, or on a private jet provided by the company as the PM has maintained.

Since the element of doubt has been introduced in what should have been an issue presenting no complications, a check with the passenger manifest of the commercial airliner which Mr Manning would have used, as per the Repsol statement, along with boarding documents for the flight, should put paid to the issue. There is another approach. The records of departures of private jets from Madrid and London, along with landings at London on the day that Prime Minister Manning has been listed as having travelled, would also be useful. The matter has been dragging on for far too long and, because it is open to being miscontrued, should be dealt with expeditiously before there are embarrassing repercussions.

It should not be difficult for the Trinidad and Tobago High Commission in London to seek the above relevant information, and one would have thought that the High Commission, without any prodding, would have seen the clearing up the doubt that has been created as being in the best interest of the Prime Minister, the Government and the country. In turn, even in advance of any such move by this country’s High Commission in London, at least one of the Prime Minister’s battery of Special Advisers should have taken necessary official action. Such action has been made all the more crucial in light of the assertion by a representative of Repsol that Mr Manning’s trip to London was by commercial airliner.

Clearly, the Repsol representative, Pedro Vaticon, was not likely to have issued the statement on his own, but must have been requested, or perhaps mandated is the more appropriate term, to make it. The question arises: Did he, or the Repsol Head Office, seek to formally advise the Office of the Prime Minister or the Trinidad and Tobago diplomat accredited to Spain of the decision to make the statement, one which, however unintentionally, would have triggered a measure of doubt? There is yet another question: Why did Repsol think it necessary to publicly issue a statement which was in conflict with the position Prime Minister Manning had been all along, and indeed is still advancing? The questions have not been asked rhetorically, and answers are required. There are factors in the equation, at least one of them somewhat uncomfortable. We hold, nonetheless, discomfort or otherwise to any of the parties concerned, that this matter be clarified. It is, after all such a simple thing to do.