Michelle Loubon

Act­ing Prime Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er says the peo­ple of South Africa need­ed Fi­fa to have faith in them. He was com­ment­ing on the suc­cess­ful host­ing the World Cup 2010 there which re­sult­ed in a Span­ish vic­to­ry and Nether­lands de­feat. Sev­er­al ob­servers had ex­pressed an un­easi­ness that vi­o­lence would have marred the sport­ing event. Warn­er made this com­ment af­ter de­liv­er­ing the fea­ture ad­dress at the launch of stake­hold­er con­sul­ta­tions on The Draft Pol­i­cy on Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion, Tech­ni­cal Vo­ca­tion­al Ed­u­ca­tion and Life­long Learn­ing at UWI, St Au­gus­tine, yes­ter­day.

Warn­er said: "I knew they would have done it. Even Mrs (Mau­reen) Warn­er, who is prepar­ing to leave said they did a great job. All they need­ed was for some­one to have faith in them." Warn­er, who had pre­dict­ed a Span­ish vic­to­ry, de­scribed it as a "rich re­sult." Turn­ing to UWI Pro­fes­sor Clement Im­bert, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter John Sandy and Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Tim Gopeesingh, he said: "I did not need any oc­to­pus." It was a ref­er­ence to the oc­to­pus or­a­cle Paul who pre­dict­ed the vic­tors by munch­ing on the ap­pro­pri­ate ma­rine treat. Warn­er al­so said the pro­gramme of co-op­er­a­tion be­gan when he in­vit­ed in­ter­na­tion­al free­dom icon Nel­son Man­dela to vis­it T&T in 2004. Man­dela had al­so at­tend­ed a ral­ly at the Queen's Park Oval, Port-of-Spain.

Quizzed on whether he missed be­ing in South Africa for the grand fi­es­ta, he said: "I am more hap­py to be here than in South Africa. I was hap­py to be here. I bow to the gov­er­nance and the con­fi­dence that the Prime Min­is­ter (Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar) has re­posed in me." It was the first World Cup fi­nal Warn­er had missed since 1978. Ear­li­er on, Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Fazal Karim paid ku­dos to Warn­er and his states­man­ly de­ci­sion to tend to the af­fairs of T&T rather than at­tend the World Cup fi­nals. As avid sup­port­ers re­turned home, even BBC jour­nal­ists re­port­ed South Africa had host­ed a great World Cup, which was rel­a­tive­ly vi­o­lence-free. South African Pres­i­dent Ja­cob Zu­ma had wel­comed the world to Africa–the cra­dle of civil­i­sa­tion.

Ku­dos for Jack Warn­er

Karim, who had vis­it­ed South Africa, said he no­ticed Man­dela and Fi­fa Pres­i­dent Sepp Blat­ter, but Jack Warn­er was not there at the clos­ing cer­e­mo­ny. In an­oth­er in­ci­dent, he said he had gone to Sowe­to–a pover­ty strick­en town­ship and no­ticed a boy sell­ing trin­kets. He en­quired who the gen­tle­man next to him was. When Warn­er was iden­ti­fied, he for­got about me. "He ran over to him and Jack Warn­er thank you for bring­ing the World Cup to South Africa." World Cup 2014 will be staged in Brazil.