Geisha Kow­lessar

As news of the res­ig­na­tion of Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er from FI­FA flood­ed the In­ter­net lo­cal politi­cians have thrown their sup­port be­hind Warn­er's de­ci­sion.Warn­er, how­ev­er, was crit­i­cised for not heed­ing calls to re­sign from FI­FA a year ago.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley: Say­ing that Warn­er should have re­signed a year ago, Row­ley charged that Warn­er's de­ci­sion to quit FI­FA was aimed at pro­tect­ing his Cab­i­net po­si­tion."His vol­un­tary with­draw­al from FI­FA, oc­ca­sioned by the re­cent in­ter­na­tion­al scan­dal in which we saw the FI­FA pres­i­dent be­ing elect­ed un­op­posed, is meant to pro­tect his po­si­tion in the Cab­i­net and pre­serve his con­trol of T&T foot­ball, a sce­nario which would not have been ten­able if a com­plet­ed FI­FA en­quiry re­sult­ed in any nec­es­sary sanc­tions against him by the world gov­ern­ing body of foot­ball," Row­ley said.

Say­ing it was be­cause the Op­po­si­tion al­ways un­der­stood that ethics and in­tegri­ty were alien con­cepts in the op­er­a­tions of FI­FA which was wide­ly re­gard­ed as a cor­rupt or­gan­i­sa­tion, Row­ley added:"That's why we have fo­cused our at­ten­tion on de­ter­min­ing whether T&T's laws were bro­ken by the func­tionar­ies of FI­FA and the Caribbean Foot­ball Union (CFU), who were al­leged by FI­FA to have con­duct­ed cor­rupt FI­FA busi­ness with­in the coun­try's bor­ders."Call­ing on Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Dwayne Gibbs to pur­sue a full in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to Warn­er, Row­ley said it must al­so be de­ter­mined whether any­one had bro­ken T&T's cur­ren­cy laws or aid­ed or abet­ted oth­ers to do so."It is now to see whether FI­FA will co-op­er­ate with the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice in main­tain­ing FI­FA's al­le­ga­tions against par­ties and sup­ply the com­mis­sion­er with the re­quest­ed in­for­ma­tion or whether it will con­tin­ue to pro­tect "fam­i­ly mem­bers" in the finest tra­di­tions of the "cosa nos­tra's" code of si­lence," Row­ley added.

Bas­deo Pan­day: For­mer prime min­is­ter and for­mer leader of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Bas­deo Pan­day called on Warn­er to do the "ho­n­ourable thing" and tell the na­tion why he re­signed from FI­FA. He added: "I have al­ways main­tained that Warn­er could not do the job of a Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter and hold a FI­FA po­si­tion."The ques­tion how­ev­er, is why he re­signed and that's what he must tell the peo­ple." He spec­u­lat­ed that if in fact Warn­er had not re­signed and had FI­FA pur­sued its al­le­ga­tions Warn­er may have been found guilty.

Ver­non de Li­ma: Mem­ber of the Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP), vy­ing for the par­ty's lead­er­ship, Ver­non de Li­ma, al­so joined the cho­rus who brand­ed Warn­er's res­ig­na­tion as one year too late."We have al­ways main­tained that Warn­er could not be a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment and do an­oth­er pro­fes­sion at the same time," De Li­ma said.Asked if he be­lieved Warn­er did the ho­n­ourable thing by re­sign­ing he added: "He did not do the ho­n­ourable thing. He did the right thing. It's nev­er too late to do the right thing."

Fitzger­ald Hinds: Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Fitzger­ald Hinds has lev­elled blame on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar for not tak­ing the ad­vice of Op­po­si­tion leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley when he warned that Warn­er could not per­form as a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment and car­ry out the du­ties of FI­FA. Say­ing he was elat­ed for the peo­ple of T&T, Hinds added: "One year ago, the po­lit­i­cal leader of the Op­po­si­tion spoke to the Prime Min­is­ter about the ap­point­ment of Jack Warn­er as a Cab­i­net Min­is­ter and at the same time hold­ing a FI­FA ap­point­ment be­cause there was po­ten­tial for con­flict for in­ter­est."When we called on the Prime Min­is­ter to dis­pense with the ser­vices of Mr Warn­er she said she would wait, pend­ing an out­come from FI­FA," Hinds said.

Ac­cus­ing Warn­er of "do­ing a duck-and-run from FI­FA with no tsuna­mi" Hinds added that Warn­er had "ef­fec­tive­ly plead­ed guilty."He added: "He has not stood up to ar­gue his case al­though he promised he would. The Prime Min­is­ter has the facts be­fore her and we ex­pect that as the Prime Min­is­ter she will treat with Mr Warn­er's con­di­tion and re­lieve him of his of­fice."He charged that the fail­ure of Per­sad-Bisses­sar to fol­low the ad­vice of the Op­po­si­tion was a re­flec­tion of a "hap­less Prime Min­is­ter." "We have seen time-and-time again ex­am­ple of the poor de­ci­sion-mak­ing on the part of a hap­less and reck­less Prime Min­is­ter."We don't know what is dri­ving her. She is con­stant­ly mak­ing bad de­ci­sions, whether it is in terms of the ap­point­ment of her me­dia events plan­ner, whether it is the Resh­mi Ram­nar­ine, whether it is the ap­point­ment of Jack Warn­er, we have seen 100 cas­es of the Prime Min­is­ter's poor de­ci­sion-mak­ing but we hope she will get this one right at this late stage."

'Probe re­mains closed'

Af­ter re­peat­ed calls made by Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley to probe bribery al­le­ga­tions in­volv­ing Warn­er, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Dwayne Gibbs sent an of­fi­cial let­ter to FI­FA last Wednes­day.The cor­re­spon­dence was dis­patched through FedEx and re­quest­ed in­for­ma­tion that FI­FA could have as­sist­ed the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice in­to com­menc­ing any in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to any al­leged crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty with­in the coun­try's ju­ris­dic­tion.Gibbs, how­ev­er, had pre­vi­ous­ly re­ject­ed such a de­mand, stat­ing that no of­fi­cial re­port had been made to the po­lice on the al­le­ga­tions.Warn­er's res­ig­na­tion from FI­FA yes­ter­day meant that the pre­sump­tion of in­no­cence is main­tained, a state­ment from the in­ter­na­tion­al foot­ball body said.

"The Trinidad and To­ba­go Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter there­fore walks away in full pos­ses­sion of his po­lit­i­cal ca­reer, for now. "The is­land's po­lice had ex­pressed in­ter­est in re­ceiv­ing any ev­i­dence FI­FA un­earthed," the state­ment added.How­ev­er, FI­FA warned that its probe stays closed on­ly for as long as Warn­er stayed in foot­ball ex­ile."Warn­er still is re­quired as a wit­ness while FI­FA's hired team of for­mer FBI agents gath­ers ev­i­dence against failed pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Mo­hammed bin Ham­mam," FI­FA said.