Yvonne Ba­boolal

Sus­pend­ed Con­ca­caf head and FI­FA vice-pres­i­dent Jack Warn­er main­tained an al­most glum si­lence as he toured the flood-dam­aged Princess Eliz­a­beth Chil­dren's Cen­tre, Mu­cu­rapo, yes­ter­day. The Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter, who had toured Beetham Gar­dens ear­li­er in the morn­ing, re­fused to an­swer ques­tions from re­porters about any­thing as­so­ci­at­ed with the bribery al­le­ga­tions over which he was sus­pend­ed by FI­FA. Warn­er, who had promised to re­veal de­tails of e-mails he sent to FI­FA pres­i­dent Sepp Blat­ter, re­mained tight-lipped yes­ter­day, as well.

He hard­ly spoke through­out the tour and did not seem his usu­al wit­ty self. On Sun­day, he told sup­port­ers at a ral­ly in Fe­lic­i­ty his lawyers had ad­vised him against read­ing the e-mails pub­licly. Yes­ter­day, ac­com­pa­nied by Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion may­or Louis Lee Sing, Warn­er trod through­out the mud­dy Princess Eliz­a­beth Cen­tre tak­ing note of the dam­age caused by flood­ing af­ter last Sat­ur­day's heavy rain­fall. He al­so was tak­en to a trib­u­tary of the Mar­aval Riv­er out­side the premis­es, part of the flood­ing prob­lem, and Good­will In­dus­tries-a train­ing in­sti­tu­tion for chil­dren with dis­abil­i­ties-that was dam­aged by flood­wa­ters.

At both cen­tres, work­men were still en­gaged in clean-up op­er­a­tions as class­es re­mained sus­pend­ed. Warn­er said his min­istry was con­sid­er­ing putting some flaps out­side the cen­tre to pre­vent the wa­ter from com­ing in­to the premis­es. The widen­ing of drains and some "un­der­ground clean­ing" al­so could be a part of the so­lu­tion to the flood­ing of the cen­tre, he added. "We're al­so think­ing of a re­tain­ing pond. The area is much low­er than sea lev­el." he added. Warn­er said the re­lo­ca­tion of the cen­tre was not an im­me­di­ate so­lu­tion. He said his min­istry was work­ing with the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion, which had no mon­ey but valu­able tech­ni­cal ex­per­tise and ad­vice.

He said the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties, the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Auwere of­fer­ing as­sis­tance in al­le­vi­at­ing the prob­lem. Warn­er promised that in two weeks' time mea­sures would be put in place to pre­vent an­oth­er flood­ing of the cen­tre. He said dur­ing his tour of Beetham Gar­dens ear­li­er in the day, he found there were tons of de­bris to be cleaned. Cul­verts un­der the Churchill-Roo­sevelt High­way al­so had col­lapsed and need­ed fix­ing, he said. Asked how he has been cop­ing with find­ing so­lu­tions to traf­fic and flood­ing, two ma­jor headaches, Warn­er, show­ing his fight­ing spir­it, said: "I make no com­plaint about my min­istry be­ing hard.

If it is the hard­est, I must be the bad­dest. "I am able to cope. I don't run from prob­lems. This, too, shall be solved," he vowed. Warn­er was sus­pend­ed from all foot­ball ac­tiv­i­ties by FI­FA, pend­ing the out­come of in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the al­le­ga­tions of bribery. The al­le­ga­tions were brought against Warn­er by Con­ca­caf sec­re­tary gen­er­al Chuck Blaz­er. Blaz­er al­leged Warn­er of­fered bribes to del­e­gates at a Caribbean Foot­ball Union meet­ing to vote for Mo­hamed bin Ham­mam, who was con­test­ing the FI­FA pres­i­den­tial post.