In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion chair­man Dr Er­ic St Cyr's re­cent state­ments about the Prime Min­is­ter's stay at a Tu­na­puna house is a clear man­i­fes­ta­tion of an "open bias" that seems to favour the PNM and par­ty leader Kei­th Row­ley, ac­cord­ing to Works Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er. Warn­er made the point in a let­ter to Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards yes­ter­day call­ing for St Cyr's re­moval. At the same time, PNM sen­a­tor Fitzger­ald Hinds was writ­ing to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion, seek­ing probe of the Prime Min­is­ter's con­duct. Warn­er al­so wrote St Cyr di­rect­ly, ask­ing him to re­sign.

The Gov­ern­ment has crit­i­cised St Cyr for say­ing the re­cent con­tro­ver­sy around the Prime Min­is­ter and her stay at a Tu­na­puna house last year could have been avoid­ed if she had stayed at a ho­tel. St Cyr had said he was not think­ing of re­sign­ing and could pos­si­bly re­cuse him­self if the is­sue went to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion.

Warn­er, how­ev­er, told the Pres­i­dent that St Cyr's state­ment was a pre­ma­ture pro­nounce­ment and "is not sim­ply a lapse in judg­ment." He said: "This is the sec­ond time in less than a year since the Gov­ern­ment was elect­ed in­to of­fice that Dr St Cyr has pro­voked the ire of the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty and al­so again this is the sec­ond time his pre­ma­ture pro­nounce­ments seem to be in­tend­ed to give cred­i­bil­i­ty to state­ments made by Row­ley."

Warn­er said that since St Cyr has failed on not one oc­ca­sion but two, in less than one year, "It ap­pears there­fore that he lacks the abil­i­ty to ap­pre­ci­ate the im­por­tance of dis­pens­ing opin­ions in a man­ner that in­stils con­fi­dence in the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty. "Giv­en his track record, it is dif­fi­cult for one to say with­out equiv­o­ca­tion that here is a man we can trust...like the chair­man of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion who brought his own com­mis­sion in­to dis­re­pute and suf­fered the con­se­quences for it, Dr St Cyr has brought the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion in­to dis­re­pute," he said. Warn­er said it was dif­fi­cult not to be­lieve that St Cyr's state­ments as chair­man were not a re­flec­tion of the think­ing of the en­tire com­mis­sion.

"It is as a re­sult of this un­cer­tain­ty, the seem­ing com­pro­mise of Dr St Cyr's own in­tegri­ty, his lack of re­straint and judg­ment and the ap­pari­tion of an al­liance with the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion, that it is my firm view and that of my col­leagues that he is un­fit to hold the of­fice of chair­man," Warn­er said. He said the com­mis­sion's chair­man was ex­pect­ed not on­ly to do the right thing, but al­so to be per­ceived to be do­ing the right thing.

In his let­ter to St Cyr, Warn­er said: "My hope is that you do not force the Pres­i­dent in­to mak­ing this dif­fi­cult de­ci­sion. "Your com­ments were not just a lapse of judg­ment be­cause it es­tab­lish­es in one's mind the no­tion that they are formed to add cre­dence to views ar­tic­u­lat­ed by the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion.

"As a re­minder of the trend you have set, it is nec­es­sary for you to re­call the un­pop­u­lar opin­ion you of­fered con­cern­ing my de­ci­sion to serve as both a gov­ern­ment min­is­ter and the vice-pres­i­dent of FI­FA, and now again your un­pop­u­lar opin­ion on the Prime Min­is­ter's de­ci­sion to seek out an al­ter­na­tive res­i­dence im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the Ho­n­ourable Kam­la Per­sad-Biesses­sar was elect­ed." Row­ley did not an­swer calls on Warn­er's ac­cu­sa­tion.

Yes­ter­day, Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion mem­ber Mar­tin George al­so said he felt St Cyr should re­sign.