Michelle Loubon

News­pa­per colum­nist Pe­ter O'Con­nor says there is no "re­al ben­e­fit" in seek­ing to re­move Fi­fa vice pres­i­dent Austin Jack Warn­er from his po­si­tion or as Min­is­ter of Works in the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship. He made this com­ment yes­ter­day at a sym­po­sium on the 2010 gen­er­al elec­tion in T&T: Analy­sis and af­ter­math. It was host­ed by the Sir Arthur Lewis' In­sti­tute of So­cial and Eco­nom­ic Stud­ies, at UWI, St Au­gus­tine. O'Con­nor said: "If there is no re­al ben­e­fit in re­mov­ing Jack Warn­er why do it? The whole Caribbean will re­coil in hor­ror if he gives up Fi­fa.

"Maybe, we in T&T do not ap­pre­ci­ate him that much but in Suri­name, Bar­ba­dos and Ja­maica peo­ple are pleased to know we have a man of his in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dard. "We need to know Jack Warn­er will make a far bet­ter Min­is­ter of Works than the pre­vi­ous one (Colm Im­bert)," O' Con­nor added. Last Fri­day, the mat­ter arose when Op­po­si­tion Leader Kei­th Row­ley said he would write the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion to de­ter­mine whether Warn­er could serve in the dual roles. To date, the com­mis­sion said the Code of Ethics for par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, in­clud­ing min­is­ters, re­quired that Cab­i­net min­is­ters di­vest them­selves of their pri­vate in­ter­ests up­on the as­sump­tion of pub­lic of­fice. In his pre­sen­ta­tion, O'Con­nor said the church at the Light­house of the Lord Je­sus Christ at the Heights of Gua­napo, Ari­ma, was hop­ing to build the church at St Ann's.

He said: "I know. I live at St Ann's. The protest held him off."

O'Con­nor added; "That church was built off the Bud­get of the Prime Min­is­ter's res­i­dence which we paid for. "Now we may not go there and pray but we paid for that church. And I am sure many of you may not pay for the church you wor­ship in. Again, he is sim­ply not be­ing truth­ful with us. "O'Con­nor poked fun at Man­ning, say­ing he had cir­cled May 24 in his di­ary as the "day he would demit of­fice. How could he call the elec­tion when he was so un­pop­u­lar...based on what was com­ing out of the church," said O' Con­nor.

O'Con­nor's con­cerns about Man­ning: Whether Man­ning was delu­sion­al (think­ing he would win) when he called the elec­tion. Dump­ing of peo­ple who com­mand­ed re­spect like for­mer Ari­ma MP/new­ly-ap­point­ed Sen­a­tor Pene­lope Beck­les. Putting in peo­ple who took the par­ty over the cliff;

n What would hap­pen if he had won the elec­tion – imag­ine the edicts;

n No apol­o­gy to the PNM, min­is­ters and sup­port­ers at Bal­isi­er House, Port-of-Spain; and, T&T find­ing ways to con­trol po­lit­i­cal lead­ers in the fu­ture. "It is not enough to say I have no re­grets. He should have apol­o­gised. He should have said 'I was wrong.' He is still dis­play­ing ar­ro­gance," O'Con­nor added.