??DIX­IE-ANN DICK­SON

A se­nior PNM of­fi­cial is ex­pect­ed to join the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship plat­form tonight at the par­ty's pub­lic meet­ing in EL Do­ra­do. This was hint­ed by Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er yes­ter­day dur­ing a me­dia launch of the Pub­lic Trans­port Ser­vice Cor­po­ra­tion's (PTSC) Five Rivers Ex­press Bus Ser­vice.

While re­spond­ing to the claims that Ian Ather­ly was paid by the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship to join the par­ty, Warn­er said: "To­mor­row night (tonight) we have an­oth­er bomb­shell to drop at EL Do­ra­do... peo­ple are leav­ing the PNM dai­ly. "To­mor­row (to­day) at 7.45 pm you would see an­oth­er speak­er and more speak­ers... they are com­ing dai­ly."

How­ev­er, Jack said, if they were to pay all of them the par­ty would be­come bank­rupt.The for­mer San Fer­nan­do May­or made a sur­prise ap­pear­ance on the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship plat­form last Fri­day night at the Har­ris Prom­e­nade, San Fer­nan­do, when he pledged his al­le­giance to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar. He served as may­or up to 2006 when his po­lit­i­cal ca­reer was seem­ing­ly over as he nev­er was giv­en any oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ty to serve. "Any­body who has to pay Ather­ly to come across has to be Bill Gates or Don­ald Trump. Mr Ather­ly would not bare his soul for any kind of mon­ey... it is an in­sult to him," Warn­er said.

He added that he want­ed to apol­o­gise to Ather­ly and all those who have been in­sult­ed by the PNM but he ex­pect­ed that. "They would say all kinds of nas­ti­ness and I have no in­ten­tions of dig­ni­fy­ing any­thing Mr Row­ley says or the act­ing ras­ta Mr Fitzger­ald Hinds," Warn­er said. He added if they be­lieved that by say­ing those things, it would make them rel­e­vant then "let them go ahead. But the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship is a par­ty that serves the peo­ple and that has been lack­ing in the PNM in the past," he added. Mean­while, ad­dress­ing is­sues with­in the par­ty, Warn­er was asked to com­ment on Ver­na St Rose's de­ci­sion to leave the par­ty if they rein­tro­duce cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment.

Warn­er said: "She is en­ti­tled to her opin­ion... I be­lieve and oth­er mem­bers who think like me are en­ti­tled to ours. "In this Gov­ern­ment or par­ty, we be­lieve in col­lec­tive re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and if the par­ty de­cides that hang­ing has to be re­sumed then I would ac­cept and if they say oth­er­wise I would al­so ac­cept." Warn­er said. He added he would not hold the par­ty to ran­som and de­cide to re­sign or not de­pend­ing on what the par­ty did. "That is not my style," Warn­er said.