?Ch­agua­nas West MP Jack Warn­er has dis­put­ed al­le­ga­tions that he re­ceived loans from Kr­ish­na Lal­la through sev­er­al of his com­pa­nies to use dur­ing the 2007 gen­er­al elec­tions. Warn­er, in To­ba­go yes­ter­day, said: "I am not sur­prised at all the elec­tion gim­micks will sur­face at this time, how­ev­er, I will not be de­famed or de­mo­ti­vat­ed to change the Gov­ern­ment of T&T." In a re­lease ear­li­er, Warn­er said he was pre­pared to dis­pute those claims and as such he will be rep­re­sent­ed by an Eng­lish Queen's Coun­cil (QC) in the mat­ter.

Warn­er said Lal­la claimed to have spent $40 mil­lion in the 2007 gen­er­al elec­tions. Warn­er in­tends to raise an is­sue with this claim. "He is al­so pur­su­ing the li­bel mat­ter against Pan­day, which is linked to Kr­ish­na Lal­la and the PNM and will be rep­re­sent­ed in that mat­ter by Ronald Thwait­es, QC," Warn­er said. Warn­er said he would ad­dress all these mat­ters pub­licly and "deal with the PNM con­spir­a­cy to dam­age his rep­u­ta­tion."