Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley says that Trinidad and To­ba­go can­not be the so­lu­tion for mil­lions of Venezue­lans who are flee­ing the coun­try and that there will come a time when the vol­ume of Venezue­lans com­ing here will be­come a bur­den.

He made the re­mark at yester­day’s post-Cab­i­net me­dia con­fer­ence. The prime min­is­ter said the first pri­or­i­ty of the gov­ern­ment is the wel­fare of the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go. He told the me­dia con­fer­ence that while Trinidad and To­ba­go is at­tempt­ing to keep its doors open, it will not be able to cope with a large mi­gra­tion of Venezue­lans.

“In­ter­na­tion­al agen­cies, many of them with dif­fer­ent agen­das to our in­ter­est in Trinidad and To­ba­go, will not en­cour­age us in­to con­vert­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go, this lit­tle is­land na­tion in the mouth of the Orinoco, in­to any refugee camp for the larg­er Venezue­lan pub­lic,” he said. Dr Row­ley added: “To pro­tect the in­ter­est of the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go we will have to lim­it our ex­po­sure to the fall­out in Venezuela.”(Trinidad Guardian)…[+]