Kim­ber­ly Mack­han

Jack Warn­er must make a choice be­tween keep­ing his po­si­tion as a Fi­fa vice-pres­i­dent, or serv­ing as Trinidad and To­ba­go's Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter.In a three-page, faxed press re­lease yes­ter­day, the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion said the Code of Ethics for par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, in­clud­ing min­is­ters, re­quired that "Cab­i­net min­is­ters di­vest them­selves of their pri­vate in­ter­ests up­on their as­sump­tion of pub­lic of­fice."

It al­so list­ed six sec­tions of the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act Code of Con­duct, which ad­dressed ar­eas re­lat­ed to a pos­si­ble or per­ceived con­flict of in­ter­est among peo­ple falling un­der the Act. The In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion con­clud­ed: "The com­mis­sion is of the view that all per­sons in pub­lic life who of­fer them­selves for Cab­i­net posts should so or­gan­ise their af­fairs in or­der that there be no breach of the afore­men­tioned Code of Con­duct or the Code of Ethics." Al­though the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion made no di­rect call for Warn­er to choose be­tween the two po­si­tions, it said: "The ques­tion whether Mr Austin Jack Warn­er should prop­er­ly be a mem­ber of the Cab­i­net of the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go while con­tin­u­ing to serve as vice-pres­i­dent of Fi­fa is ac­tive­ly in the pub­lic sphere and has been brought to the at­ten­tion of the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion."

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Warn­er, 67, has been a mem­ber of the Fi­fa ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee since 1983. He has been Con­ca­caf pres­i­dent since 1990. His pres­i­den­tial term would end in 2011. The com­mis­sion ex­plained that it was re­spon­si­ble for "the reg­u­la­tion of the con­duct of per­sons ex­er­cis­ing pub­lic func­tions, and, for pre­serv­ing and pro­mot­ing the in­tegri­ty of pub­lic of­fi­cials and in­sti­tu­tions." It added that it ex­e­cut­ed its re­spon­si­bil­i­ties through the ap­pli­ca­tion of the Code of Con­duct spec­i­fied in the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act, which gov­erned peo­ple in pub­lic life. The com­mis­sion made ref­er­ence to Sec­tion 29 (1) of the Code of Con­duct, which stat­ed: "For the pur­pos­es of this Act, a con­flict of in­ter­est is deemed to arise if a per­son in pub­lic life or any per­son ex­er­cis­ing a pub­lic func­tion were to make or par­tic­i­pate in the mak­ing of a de­ci­sion in the ex­e­cu­tion of his of­fice and at the same time knows or ought rea­son­ably to have known, that in the mak­ing of the de­ci­sion, there is an op­por­tu­ni­ty ei­ther di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly to fur­ther his pri­vate in­ter­ests or that of a mem­ber of his fam­i­ly or any oth­er per­son."

It al­so not­ed Sec­tion 29 (2) of the Code of Con­duct, which stat­ed: "Where there is a pos­si­ble or per­ceived con­flict of in­ter­est, a per­son to whom this part ap­plies, shall dis­close his in­ter­est in ac­cor­dance with pre­scribed pro­ce­dures and dis­qual­i­fy him­self from any de­ci­sion-mak­ing process." Con­cerns about Warn­er serv­ing as both a Fi­fa vice-pres­i­dent and Trinidad and To­ba­go's Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter were first raised by Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley last Fri­day. Row­ley ex­plained that he had "no doubt that Mr Warn­er is a very ca­pa­ble and hard work­ing gen­tle­man, who has good vi­sion and he is an as­set to us in Trinidad and To­ba­go at the FI­FA desk," but he had "some se­ri­ous con­cerns about the pro­pri­ety of a min­is­ter of gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go hold­ing ex­ec­u­tive au­thor­i­ty in an or­gan­i­sa­tion, lo­cal or for­eign." Warn­er dis­missed Row­ley's con­cerns and not­ed that sev­er­al mem­bers of Fi­fa al­so served in for­eign min­is­te­r­i­al and po­lit­i­cal posts.

Among these in­clud­ed the chair­man of the par­ty in Ko­rea and the Ger­man Min­is­ter of Fi­nance. Warn­er added that "the fact that I am a mem­ber of those two or­gan­i­sa­tions is a cred­it to Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Caribbean."

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she need­ed to read the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion's state­ment be­fore of­fer­ing a com­ment.