Geisha Kow­lessar

Fi­fa vice-pres­i­dent and Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er, who has found him­self in con­tro­ver­sy since his Cab­i­net ap­point­ment, is call­ing for the im­me­di­ate res­ig­na­tion of chair­man of the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion, Dr Er­ic St Cyr. Warn­er's de­mand fol­lowed state­ments made by St Cyr, who called on Warn­er to choose be­tween his Cab­i­net po­si­tion and his long-stand­ing of­fice as Fi­fa vice-pres­i­dent. "I am call­ing on Dr St Cyr to step down im­me­di­ate­ly as chair­man of the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion, and dis­tance him­self from any probe in­volv­ing the church at the Heights of Gua­napo. "He must do what is right by step­ping down." Speak­ing with a dai­ly news­pa­per over the week­end, St Cyr said: "My per­son­al view is that I think he (Warn­er) should choose. "I know that he is like­ly to be a very tremen­dous Min­is­ter of Works and so on, but I al­so know that he re­al­ly serves the na­tion and the re­gion on this world plat­form, but as dif­fi­cult as that may be, I thought that he should choose one or the oth­er."

Warn­er, who spent Fa­ther's Day re­lax­ing at a Ma­yaro beach house with his two sons, ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment in St Cyr's com­ments. "I am dis­ap­point­ed that the Chair­man of the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion would come out and pub­licly ex­press his per­son­al opin­ion on Jack Warn­er in a mat­ter in­volv­ing col­lec­tive re­spon­si­bil­i­ty," Warn­er said. Ac­cus­ing St Cyr of be­ing "bi­ased and prej­u­diced," Warn­er deemed him as "no dif­fer­ent from any oth­er chair­men of the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion." Warn­er said he in­tend­ed to write St Cyr an of­fi­cial let­ter, ex­press­ing his dis­ap­point­ment. Warn­er al­so called on St Cyr, who is said to be a pas­tor, to ex­cuse him­self from any probe in­to the con­struc­tion of the con­tro­ver­sial church at the Heights of Gua­napo in Ari­ma. Mean­while, for­mer works and trans­port min­is­ter Colm Im­bert dis­agreed with Warn­er, say­ing that St Cyr was en­ti­tled to free­dom of speech.

"Where is it writ­ten that the Chair­man of the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion can­not speak? Dr St Cyr is en­ti­tled to free­dom of speech," Im­bert said yes­ter­day. Ac­cord­ing to Im­bert, "at this point," Warn­er was "not guilty of any­thing," but it may be dif­fi­cult for him to func­tion as a Cab­i­net min­is­ter and pur­sue many of his busi­ness ven­tures. Cit­ing that a code of ethics was dif­fer­ent from a code of con­duct, Im­bert ex­plained that a code of ethics was mere­ly a guide, and hence not manda­to­ry. A code of con­duct, Im­bert said, was gov­erned by the In­tegri­ty and Pub­lic life Act, and hence manda­to­ry by law. "There is al­so a sec­tion that speaks of con­flict of in­ter­est, but at this point I don't be­lieve Mr Warn­er is guilty of any­thing. "But I have al­ways be­lieved that it may be dif­fi­cult for him to func­tion as a Cab­i­net min­is­ter and to pur­sue his oth­er busi­ness in­ter­ests that would not ben­e­fit his fam­i­ly or him­self," Im­bert said.

Re­gard­ing the is­sue of the church, Im­bert al­so dis­agreed with Warn­er that St Cyr should not be in­volved in an of­fi­cial probe. "If we fol­low Mr Warn­er's ar­gu­ment, it just does not make any sense, un­less there is a con­nec­tion be­tween St Cyr and the church at Gua­napo," Im­bert said.