Ani­ka Gumbs-San­di­ford

The over­whelm­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty of Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er has a part to play in him be­ing cut down to size in the re­cent Cab­i­net reshuf­fle.A plan, Sun­day Guardian un­der­stands, was hatched to frus­trate Warn­er out of the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar led Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship (PP) Gov­ern­ment, mere weeks af­ter her re­signed as vice pres­i­dent of FI­FA.There had been ru­mours cir­cu­lat­ing more than six months ago that the PM had plans to split Warn­er's min­istry. Warn­er how­ev­er, was un­aware of this.

High rank­ing par­ty sources con­firmed to Sun­day Guardian that cer­tain se­nior Cab­i­net col­leagues took is­sue with Warn­er's per­for­mance and grow­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty, es­pe­cial­ly among the grass­roots. Warn­er's pop­u­lar­i­ty had al­so be­gun to over­shad­ow Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar who is the leader of the PP coali­tion gov­ern­ment. Warn­er's in­creas­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty was work­ing against the im­age of the Prime Min­is­ter and de­ci­sive ac­tion had to be tak­en to change this.

There has been "a ca­bal" with­in the Cab­i­net made up of at least three mem­bers who have the ears of the PM. It was based on the ad­vice of these in­di­vid­u­als, par­ty sources said, that Per­sad-Bisses­sar made some of the "shock­ing changes" with­in the PP Gov­ern­ment. And Warn­er is not the on­ly Cab­i­net mem­ber they have been at­tack­ing.Sun­day Guardian al­so learnt the on­go­ing row with Caribbean Air­lines Ltd (CAL) chair­man George Nicholas who is a huge fi­nancier of the PP, al­so played a role in the de­ci­sion to shaft Warn­er.

Stabbed in the back

Par­ty sources, up­set by the moves against Warn­er, felt he is be­ing "stabbed in the back with a knife" by some of his own col­leagues whom he spent "time and mon­ey to pro­pel in­to high of­fice".Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tists/an­a­lysts, polls and sur­veys have all rat­ed Warn­er as the best per­form­ing Min­is­ter since the PP tri­umphed over the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion in the May 24, 2010 gen­er­al elec­tion.The re­cent Mar­ket Facts and Opin­ions Poll rat­ed Warn­er as the best per­form­ing Min­is­ter in the Cab­i­net.While the find­ings re­vealed the Prime Min­is­ter's rat­ing and pop­u­lar­i­ty fell from 68 to 54 per cent be­cause of her han­dling of con­tro­ver­sial mat­ters. "Since as­sum­ing of­fice in 2010 the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port is the best per­form­ing min­istry. The Prime Min­is­ter nev­er had any is­sue with that min­istry un­til last month; she boast­ed of the ef­fi­cien­cy of that min­istry.

"Through­out the world the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port has a nat­ur­al fit so the de­ci­sion to split the min­istry is re­al­ly not jus­ti­fied. There is much more than what meets the eye," an up­set par­ty source stat­ed.Mean­while, econ­o­mists have al­so ques­tioned the fea­si­bil­i­ty of the move, giv­en that the Works and Trans­port Min­istry plays a ma­jor role in a boom­ing econ­o­my.Ac­cord­ing to Dr Dhanayshar Ma­habir a de­ci­sion to split a min­istry must guar­an­tee a greater lev­el of ef­fi­cien­cy.He said on­ly the Prime Min­is­ter would be able to ex­plain her ac­tions giv­en that such an is­sue did not arise with the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port.

Pres­sure from Cab­i­net col­leagues

Sun­day Guardian un­der­stands that no jus­ti­fi­ca­tion was giv­en for the split­ting of the min­istry when the Prime Min­is­ter met with her Cab­i­net two Sat­ur­days ago, fir­ing some min­is­ters and shift­ing oth­ers.Warn­er, well-placed in­sid­ers said, took is­sue with the move and ques­tioned the ra­tio­nale."Warn­er has been un­der pres­sure from his Cab­i­net col­leagues who en­vy him for the way he per­forms in his min­istry," a source said.

Their ac­tions have left Warn­er "an­gry and frus­trat­ed," a Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial said. There have al­so been claims of funds be­ing held back from Warn­er to start ma­jor projects un­der his min­istry.On­ly re­cent­ly, gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials con­firmed that Warn­er's min­istry es­caped a $50 mil­lion fine for bare­ly be­ing able to meet the stip­u­lat­ed time­line to com­mence con­struc­tion of the bil­lion-dol­lar San Fer­nan­do to Point Fortin High­way project.Sun­day Guardian un­der­stands the min­istry has been forced to con­tin­u­ous­ly for­ward var­i­ous pieces of cor­re­spon­dence to the Min­istry of Fi­nance re­quest­ing fund­ing for var­i­ous projects.

"From the start it has been a strug­gle for him to get fund­ing. It is over six months the min­istry had to wait to get the first cheque to start a ma­jor project and now a de­ci­sion has been tak­en to split the min­istry caus­ing oth­er projects to go on hold. Every­thing is in lim­bo," a se­nior min­istry of­fi­cial said.Con­tact­ed for com­ment on the with­hold­ing of funds from Warn­er, Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Win­ston Dook­er­an said: "It's a process and the PS is in charge."On­ly two state boards now un­der Jack

Warn­er, who head­ed the largest min­istry in the PP Cab­i­net was pre­vi­ous­ly in charge of 16 state boards-among them the con­tro­ver­sial CAL board head­ed by Nicholas-now on­ly has two boards un­der his purview in the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture-Main­te­nance Train­ing and Se­cu­ri­ty (MTS) and the Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (Nid­co). Ac­cord­ing to the min­istry's Web site the state boards that fall un­der the port­fo­lio of Works and Trans­port are:

•Caribbean Air­lines

•Port Au­thor­i­ty of T&T

•Air­port Au­thor­i­ty of T&T

•Air Trans­port Li­cens­ing Au­thor­i­ty

•Li­cens­ing Au­thor­i­ty of T&T

•Pi­lotage Au­thor­i­ty

•Pub­lic Trans­port Ser­vices Cor­po­ra­tion

•Trans­port Board

•T&T Civ­il Avi­a­tion Au­thor­i­ty

•The Ve­hi­cle Main­te­nance Man­age­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T

•Main­te­nance Train­ing and Se­cu­ri­ty Com­pa­ny

•Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny

•Na­tion­al He­li­copter Ser­vices Ltd

•Li­at (1974) Ltd

The split in the min­istry would now see the ma­jor­i­ty of state boards falling un­der the purview of for­mer Pub­lic Trans­port Ser­vices Com­mis­sion (PTSC) chair­man De­vant Ma­haraj who joined the PP Cab­i­net as Trans­port Min­is­ter. Ma­haraj, the for­mer pres­i­dent of Glob­al Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Peo­ple Of In­di­an Ori­gin, got the nod from Warn­er when he was se­lect­ed to head the PTSC board which pre­vi­ous­ly fell un­der his port­fo­lio.

Well placed sources con­firmed yes­ter­day that the Prime Min­is­ter was ex­pect­ed to dis­close on Thurs­day un­der whose con­trol sev­er­al of the state boards now fall.How­ev­er, Sun­day Guardian un­der­stands, the Prime Min­is­ter did not at­tend the week­ly Cab­i­net meet­ing due to the flu.The PM is ex­pect­ed to clear the air on the shift­ing of the state boards be­tween Warn­er and Ma­haraj.Sev­er­al at­tempts to con­tact Warn­er yes­ter­day proved fu­tile. Voice mes­sages left on his cel­lu­lar phones went unan­swered up to late yes­ter­day.At­tempts to con­tact the Prime Min­is­ter were al­so un­suc­cess­ful. Calls to her cell phone went unan­swered.

Warn­er wants VM­COTT, Li­cens­ing, PBR

Par­ty sources fur­ther re­vealed that Warn­er wrote to the Prime Min­is­ter last week re­quest­ing that he re­tain the fol­low­ing:

•VM­COTT

•Li­cens­ing Au­thor­i­ty of T&T

•Con­trol of the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route. How­ev­er, sources said, he has not re­ceived any re­sponse.

Warn­er, sources fur­ther re­vealed, al­so met with Ma­haraj last week in­di­cat­ing the agen­cies he would like to re­tain.Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Ma­haraj de­clined to con­firm whether he had dis­cus­sions with Warn­er re­gard­ing the is­sue.Evad­ing the ques­tion, and di­rect­ing all ques­tions to Warn­er, Ma­haraj replied: "My po­si­tion is I did not ap­point my­self, it was the Prime Min­is­ter. The al­lo­ca­tion of port­fo­lios is the re­mit of the Prime Min­is­ter. It is not un­der my purview and I would not be pre­sump­tu­ous."

An­a­lyst on Warn­er:

It does not pay to be pop­u­lar

Giv­ing his take on the is­sue, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Sel­wyn Ryan said it is not the first time a min­is­ter has been 'cut down to size' for be­ing more pop­u­lar that their po­lit­i­cal leader.Ryan said a sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion oc­curred un­der the for­mer PNM regime when then fi­nance min­is­ter, Wen­dell Mot­t­ley was rat­ed as the best per­form­ing MP over for­mer po­lit­i­cal leader Patrick Man­ning fol­low­ing a poll con­duct­ed by him­self.

Ryan ex­plained: "It hap­pens from time to time when a mem­ber of the par­ty be­comes more pop­u­lar than the Prime Min­is­ter, steps are tak­en to change this. The pop­u­lar­i­ty is seen as not be­ing in the best in­ter­est of the Prime Min­is­ter. The truth is, Mr Warn­er is very pop­u­lar in cer­tain sec­tions of T&T; whether he is go­ing to form his own po­lit­i­cal par­ty is a whole oth­er is­sue. The split­ting of the Works and Trans­port Min­istry has tak­en some shine off his ball. That min­istry is the pow­er base of the Cab­i­net and the min­is­ter is very in­stru­men­tal in mak­ing de­ci­sions. By split­ting the min­istry Mr Warn­er has suf­fered di­min­ish­ing sta­tus."

Ram­per­sad: It will not­make him less pop­u­lar

While ex­press­ing a some­what dif­fer­ent view, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad said while Warn­er's pop­u­lar­i­ty was due to his ded­i­ca­tion to serv­ing peo­ple, the split­ting of the min­istry was aimed at quelling the on­go­ing dis­pute be­tween Warn­er and the CAL board. "I do not think split­ting his min­istry would make him any least pop­u­lar. Warn­er's pop­u­lar­i­ty is not just the role he plays in his min­istry but the way he goes out to help con­stituents. He has been rat­ed as the best per­form­ing min­is­ter and MP be­cause his pop­u­lar­i­ty stemmed from con­stituents who nev­er re­ceived such sup­port from any oth­er MP. In ad­di­tion, he is reach­ing the grass­roots peo­ple."Whether his pop­u­lar­i­ty is a threat to Prime Min­is­ter I do not think so...."