Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Af­ter mount­ing calls and an on­line pe­ti­tion call­ing for his re­moval, Sport Min­is­ter Anil Roberts has re­signed.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced Roberts' res­ig­na­tion and her de­ci­sion to ac­cept it as she ad­dressed the week­ly post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing at the San Fer­nan­do Teach­ing Hos­pi­tal.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so an­nounced Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy Min­is­ter Dr Ru­pert Grif­fith had been as­signed the Sport Min­istry, in the in­ter­im, in ad­di­tion to his present port­fo­lio un­til a suit­able re­place­ment is found.

Her an­nounce­ment fol­lows the find­ings of the fi­nan­cial au­dit in­to the con­tro­ver­sial Life Sport pro­gramme.

The au­dit, which was laid in Par­lia­ment last week Fri­day, un­earthed wide­spread cor­rup­tion prompt­ing her to ter­mi­nate the pro­gramme im­me­di­ate­ly.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said there was enough ev­i­dence to war­rant a probe by the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP), the act­ing of Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion and the head of the Pub­lic Ser­vice.

De­liv­er­ing her state­ment at yes­ter­day's brief­ing, said: "I con­tin­ue to be dis­il­lu­sioned, dis­ap­point­ed and dis­tressed by the lev­el of de­cep­tion and dis­hon­esty as­so­ci­at­ed with the well in­ten­tioned Life Sport pro­gramme."

Pri­or to her state­ment there was spec­u­la­tion that Roberts was go­ing to be re­moved from the Cab­i­net.

At 3.15 pm, af­ter re­porters were in­vit­ed to the Teach­ing Hos­pi­tal for 1 pm, the Prime Min­is­ter en­tered the con­fer­ence room where jour­nal­ists were wait­ing for the brief­ing.

She pre­sent­ed cheques to the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee and four rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Is­lam­ic or­gan­i­sa­tions and told jour­nal­ists not to leave. She hint­ed she had more to say lat­er and they should wait.

Short­ly af­ter 4 pm press sec­re­tary Fran­cis Joseph re­turned to the con­fer­ence room and an­nounced that act­ing En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Bhoen­dratt Tewarie and For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an would make an­nounce­ments at the brief­ing and they would be fol­lowed by a state­ment from Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

At 4.30 pm Per­sad-Bisses­sar emerged and de­liv­ered her brief state­ment. She did not take ques­tions.

In her state­ment she said she had "re­sist­ed quick judg­ment and rash de­ci­sion" and had demon­strat­ed "pa­tient al­lowance for all sides of the sto­ry to be heard through an in­de­pen­dent au­dit" and had "al­lowed due process to oc­cur."

How­ev­er, she said, the elec­tion of the Peo­ples' Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment had changed the po­lit­i­cal land­scape and "the ex­pec­ta­tions of the pub­lic that some­thing will be done when wrongs are com­mit­ted in pub­lic of­fice are now the hall­marks of good gov­er­nance."

In this vein, she said: "I have de­cid­ed to ac­cept the of­fer of res­ig­na­tion as Min­is­ter of Sport from Anil Roberts."

She said she had ad­vised act­ing Pres­i­dent Tim­o­thy Hamel-Smith that with ef­fect from yes­ter­day, in ac­cor­dance with the pro­vi­sions of sec­tion 3 (9) and 79 (1) of the Con­sti­tu­tion, that Roberts's ap­point­ment as Min­is­ter of Sport be re­voked and that Grif­fith be as­signed the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for Min­istry of Sport in ad­di­tion to his present du­ties.

She re­mind­ed re­porters that at the hint of cor­rupt prac­tices she im­me­di­ate­ly or­dered that the pro­gramme be switched to the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and in­struct­ed an in­de­pen­dent au­dit be con­duct­ed.