Derek Achong

Op­po­si­tion leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley says Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar should re­lieve sus­pend­ed FI­FA vice pres­i­dent Jack Warn­er of his role as Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter in the in­ter­est of good gov­er­nance. Row­ley made the state­ment at a Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) spe­cial meet­ing at the Mal­oney Shop­ping Com­plex, Mal­oney, on Wednes­day night. Row­ley, in de­liv­er­ing his fea­ture ad­dress to a crowd of about 500 sup­port­ers, said he had no prob­lem with Warn­er's FI­FA port­fo­lio when he was an Op­po­si­tion MP but took is­sue af­ter he was an­nounced as a Cab­i­net Min­is­ter af­ter last year's gen­er­al elec­tion.

He said: "I am mak­ing no per­son­al cru­sade against Warn­er, the man, but I have se­ri­ous is­sue with him as a Cab­i­net Min­is­ter. "He (Warn­er) has por­trayed T&T's im­age in a poor light in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. We could have avoid­ed that." Row­ley al­so called on Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Dwayne Gibbs to in­ves­ti­gate the al­leged meet­ing be­tween Mo­hammed bin Ham­man and Caribbean Foot­ball Union (CFU) mem­bers be­tween May 10 and 11 that led to Warn­er's even­tu­al sus­pi­cion by FI­FA's Ethics Com­mit­tee. He said: "The last thing the Gov­ern­ment should want to do is to send a mes­sage to the mis­guid­ed youth that some peo­ple are above the law or their of­fice is too high for the law."

Al­though Warn­er's sus­pen­sion was the main talk­ing point for the speak­ers at the meet­ing ,which in­clud­ed Diego Mar­tin North/East MP Colm Im­bert, Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor Ter­rence Deyals­ingh and Arou­ca/Mal­oney MP Ali­cia Hospedales, oth­er "scan­dals" dur­ing the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship's first year in Gov­ern­ment were cit­ed, much to the de­light of the sup­port­ers. In his ad­dress Row­ley as­sured PNM sup­port­ers the Op­po­si­tion would con­tin­ue to press the Gov­ern­ment on ma­jor is­sues af­fect­ing T&T. When men­tion­ing the fi­as­co, in­volv­ing NP's award of a $40 mil­lion con­tract for gaso­line haul­ing to Gopaul and Com­pa­ny Ltd, Row­ley said: "They (the Gov­ern­ment) thinks the re­port will get lost in the FI­FA/Warn­er is­sue. "The PNM has got­ten wary, yet, we (PNM) are on your trail."