Ani­ka Gumbs-San­di­ford

A heat­ed row over the state of emer­gency (SoE) re­sult­ed in a near phys­i­cal con­fronta­tion be­tween Cab­i­net col­leagues-Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Brigadier John Sandy and Sports Min­is­ter Anil Roberts. The heat­ed con­fronta­tion is al­leged to have oc­curred dur­ing last Thurs­day's Cab­i­net meet­ing. Sun­day Guardian un­der­stands that Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar was forced to in­ter­vene in an at­tempt to quell the row­dy dis­pute. Re­li­able sources told Sun­day Guardian that the ex­change of words be­tween the min­is­ters broke out af­ter Roberts blamed Sandy and the se­cu­ri­ty forces for the fail­ure of the state of emer­gency, say­ing that Sandy should have tak­en charge of the se­cu­ri­ty forces.

How­ev­er, Sandy, Sun­day Guardian learnt, ob­ject­ed to the min­is­ter's ac­cu­sa­tions. "Min­is­ter Roberts was very crit­i­cal of the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty re­gard­ing the ex­ten­sion of the state of emer­gency.... The Min­is­ter of Sports felt that the ex­ten­sion of the state of emer­gency failed and served no pur­pose giv­en that all de­tainees were re­leased," top lev­el sources re­vealed. Ac­cord­ing to well-placed sources, Sandy took ob­jec­tion to Roberts' com­ments boast­ing of his mil­i­tary back­ground and ex­per­tise. But the min­is­ter's at­tempt to jus­ti­fy the ex­ten­sion of the state of emer­gency on­ly fur­ther fu­elled the "heat" be­tween him and Roberts.

"While oth­er min­is­ters al­so had views on the ex­ten­sion of the state of emer­gency, the ver­bal ex­change be­tween both min­is­ters was very heat­ed," sources said. Ac­cord­ing to sources, Roberts was bois­ter­ous in his claims. "Min­is­ter Sandy con­tin­ued to jus­ti­fy his de­ci­sion to ex­tend the state of emer­gency warn­ing Min­is­ter Roberts that he was not in­tim­i­dat­ed by him. Some min­is­ters had to beg them to cool it but no­body was lis­ten­ing and then Min­is­ter Roberts stormed out the meet­ing," sources added.

Sun­day Guardian un­der­stands that Per­sad-Bisses­sar in­struct­ed Roberts to re­turn to the meet­ing and rep­ri­mand­ed him for his out­burst. While the PM ac­knowl­edged that Roberts had a point to make, she felt it could have been done in a bet­ter man­ner. He was asked to apol­o­gise to the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter. More than 400 de­tainees ar­rest­ed un­der the state of emer­gency have been re­leased. The state of emer­gency ex­pires to­mor­row. Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Sandy did not de­ny or con­firm the con­fronta­tion. On whether he in­tend­ed to step down fol­low­ing claims from his own Cab­i­net col­league that the state of emer­gency had failed, Sandy replied via text mes­sage: "Re­sign?? Don't know about that one and where it came from..." How­ev­er, sev­er­al calls and a text mes­sage to Roberts went unan­swered.