Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Jack Warn­er has con­firmed his ac­coun­tants are in the fi­nal stages of bro­ker­ing a deal to buy the Mir­ror news­pa­per. The min­is­ter said the mat­ter was at a very del­i­cate stage and he would com­ment on it some­time next week. Be­fore the deal was bro­kered, Warn­er re­port­ed­ly sought the ad­vice of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and mem­bers of the Cab­i­net. A source said Warn­er held ne­go­ti­a­tions with Pe­dro Chookolin­go but con­tact­ed on his cell­phone yes­ter­day, he de­nied that was so. He said the T&T Guardian was "talk­ing to the wrong Chookolin­go." Asked which Chookolin­go was in­volved in the deal, he said: "You find out, that is your job, not mine. You news peo­ple al­ways have the wrong in­for­ma­tion."

Chookolin­goo said he did not know any­thing about Warn­er buy­ing the Mir­ror. Warn­er de­nied yes­ter­day the pur­chase had been fi­nalised. "It's not true, dis­cus­sions are still tak­ing place," he said. Asked to give de­tails of the dis­cus­sion, Warn­er said: "My ac­coun­tant meets with them, not me. We are in the fi­nal stages of dis­cus­sion." Warn­er said he would pro­vide more de­tails af­ter he spoke with his ac­coun­tant. How­ev­er, in a sub­se­quent phone call, Warn­er said the dis­cus­sions were at a del­i­cate stage and he would make a state­ment on the is­sue next week. Asked about his dis­cus­sions with the Prime Min­is­ter, Warn­er said: "I pre­fer not to say any­thing more about that. I will speak about it next week." Some of Warn­er's Cab­i­net col­leagues have de­fend­ed his de­ci­sion to buy the news­pa­per.

Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness Dr Roodal Mooni­lal said last week he did not think the in­de­pen­dence of the Mir­ror would be un­der­mined if Warn­er as­sumed con­trol. He said un­der the NAR ad­min­is­tra­tion, then min­is­ter Ken Gor­don was af­fil­i­at­ed with the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Net­work group. Mooni­lal added that Warn­er knew as a Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter he could not be in­volved in any oth­er in­come-earn­ing busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ty. Warn­er's me­dia bid for the News­day and Mir­ror news­pa­pers was first re­port­ed last month. In­te­grat­ed Me­dia Com­pa­ny own­er Max­ie Cuffie's lease end­ed on Au­gust 31. Cuffie told the T&T?Guardian he could not com­pete with Warn­er's mon­ey. There were re­ports that Cuffie had of­fered $9 mil­lion for the news­pa­per but Warn­er of­fered $12 mil­lion.