It is clear that there is an in­con­sis­ten­cy be­tween Jack Warn­er's port­fo­lios of Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter and Fi­fa vice-pres­i­dent. This was the view of for­mer prime min­is­ter and Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) leader Bas­deo Pan­day yes­ter­day. Pan­day made the re­mark af­ter he was asked to com­ment on the al­le­ga­tions of bribery against Warn­er by Fi­fa ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee mem­ber Amer­i­can Chuck Blaz­er. Warn­er is be­ing ac­cused, along with Fi­fa pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Muham­mad bin Ham­mam, of of­fer­ing bribes to mem­bers of the Caribbean Foot­ball Union for votes in the up­com­ing June 1 Fi­fa pres­i­den­tial elec­tions.

Not­ing that he did not think it was right to com­ment be­fore Warn­er's hear­ing be­fore a Fi­fa ethics com­mit­tee in Zurich, Switzer­land, Pan­day said: "But I have to re­mark that it is clear that there is an in­con­sis­ten­cy be­tween his port­fo­lios as a min­is­ter and as Fi­fa vice-pres­i­dent. "This is­sue arose be­fore, I re­mem­ber, and he sur­vived that ar­gu­ment," he said. "My view is that those who said that the two jobs were not com­pat­i­ble were quite right. "It is be­com­ing clear­er and clear­er that they (the port­fo­lios) are not com­pat­i­ble, and he ought to choose (be­tween the two)."

Pan­day said the al­le­ga­tions of bribery against Warn­er must sure­ly be em­bar­rass­ing to T&T and the Gov­ern­ment. Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) chair­man Joseph Toney said from where he sits, the mat­ter was of grave con­cern to him. "Warn­er is a pre­mier min­is­ter of the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment of which the COP is a vi­tal part. "If, at the end of the day, the al­le­ga­tions prove to be cor­rect, we will have more to say." Asked if he felt the same way about the re­cent al­le­ga­tions of wrong­do­ing brought against COP mem­ber Mary King, Toney said: "The Mary King is­sue was pure­ly gov­ern­men­tal. "Warn­er's mat­ter has some im­pli­ca­tions for the Gov­ern­ment, but is a foot­ball is­sue." Con­tact­ed for com­ment yes­ter­day At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan said: "I have no com­ment to make on that."