Gail Alexan­der

The Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and the Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP), a coali­tion part­ner in the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship, have called on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to im­me­di­ate­ly act in the is­sue con­cern­ing taped state­ments by Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er. PNM MP Amery Browne said Per­sad-Bisses­sar must im­me­di­ate­ly sus­pend Warn­er from the Cab­i­net and al­low a po­lice probe to pro­ceed. COP chair­man Joseph Toney, who said he was not at all com­fort­able with the sit­u­a­tion per­tain­ing to Warn­er, added that the Prime Min­is­ter must speak about the is­sue and the coun­try must be told whether any laws were bro­ken.

The tape was post­ed on the In­ter­net by Lon­don's Tele­graph news­pa­per. In it, Warn­er al­leged­ly urged fel­low Caribbean foot­ball of­fi­cials to ac­cept US$40,000 cash gifts from Qatar's Mo­hamed bin Ham­mam, a for­mer pres­i­den­tial can­di­date for world foot­ball gov­ern­ing body, FI­FA. Warn­er was at the time speak­ing at a meet­ing of the Caribbean Foot­ball Union (CFU) on May 11 at the Hy­att Re­gency Ho­tel, Port-of-Spain. This was be­fore FI­FA's pres­i­den­tial elec­tions. The gifts were an al­leged pay­ment for CFU mem­bers to sup­port bin Ham­mam's can­di­da­cy. Warn­er was sus­pend­ed pend­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the in­ci­dent. He sub­se­quent­ly re­signed as FI­FA vice-pres­i­dent. Warn­er has ad­mit­ted to telling the CFU del­e­gates to take the mon­ey and use it for de­vel­op­ment, but he says the tape was doc­tored.

Yes­ter­day, COP's Toney said: "While Warn­er is no longer in FI­FA that doesn't wipe away every­thing. "This is not a com­fort­able sit­u­a­tion for the Gov­ern­ment or Cab­i­net and I for one am not at all com­fort­able with it," he said. "One would hope the mat­ter is cleared up as quick­ly as pos­si­ble whether by FI­FA, Warn­er or the Prime Min­is­ter. "The coun­try needs to as­cer­tain if any laws were bro­ken, if on­ly to set­tle this one way or the oth­er...Any ac­tion on Warn­er would be her (PM's) call." PNM's Browne al­so said: "Warn­er must be sus­pend­ed as a gov­ern­ment min­is­ter and prop­er in­ves­ti­ga­tion done with­in our shores, tak­ing in­to con­sid­er­a­tion the se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions made and the ev­i­dence that has come to light. "This tape can­not be over­looked us­ing the usu­al ex­cus­es about who has files on who and that 'all will be re­vealed in time,'" he said.

"This is ev­i­dence in black, white and colour. "Hun­dreds were ar­rest­ed un­der the state of emer­gency with no ev­i­dence or less than what has been pro­duced in Warn­er's case. "Gov­ern­ment should be ashamed of con­tin­u­ing to sub­ject cit­i­zens to such un­just treat­ment while turn­ing a blind eye to the glar­ing ev­i­dence of atroc­i­ties at the high­est lev­el of Cab­i­net." Not­ing Warn­er act­ed as Prime Min­is­ter up to three weeks ago, Browne said: "The Prime Min­is­ter can no longer hide from this...She must act im­me­di­ate­ly and once she does her du­ty and sus­pends Warn­er that will al­low the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er to con­duct the in­ves­ti­ga­tion on Warn­er and the is­sue which the PNM has been call­ing for him to do.

"This CFU meet­ing oc­curred on T&T soil when Warn­er was a min­is­ter," he added. "If the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er need­ed ev­i­dence, this tape now makes it ab­solute­ly nec­es­sary for this probe to go for­ward. "If we wait for Warn­er to re­sign, it is clear he will nev­er do so no mat­ter what ev­i­dence is pre­sent­ed. "The PM must stop vac­il­lat­ing and do what is right for T&T, es­pe­cial­ly since Gov­ern­ment is seek­ing in­vest­ment. "The Prime Min­is­ter can­not keep par­rot­ing that T&T is open for busi­ness when by her in­ac­tion on this sort for sit­u­a­tion she shows she has no con­cern for T&T's im­age or the al­leged con­duct of her min­is­ters."