Gail Alexan­der

GISL head Andy John­son's de­ci­sion to leave the "First Up" show is an em­bar­rass­ment for the Gov­ern­ment since John­son was de­scribed as the best per­son for the job and was heav­i­ly pro­mot­ed as new host over the week­end, said for­mer host Fazeer Mo­hammed yes­ter­day.

Mo­hammed was com­ment­ing on Mon­day's move by John­son away from the show af­ter host­ing it for a few days af­ter Mo­hammed was re­moved as host. This was fol­lowed by a storm of con­tro­ver­sy and crit­i­cism of the Gov­ern­ment, Ali, John­son and Min­is­ter Su­ruj Ram­bachan (whose in­ter­view with Mo­hammed pre­ced­ed his re­moval). For­mer me­dia work­er Hema Ramkisson ap­peared on the show yes­ter­day morn­ing along­side co-an­chor Jessie-May Ven­tour. Ex­plain­ing his de­par­ture, John­son said the stint had been un­der­tak­en on the un­der­stand­ing it was on­ly tem­po­rary and he would have de­ter­mined the length of time he would have stayed on it.

Al­though John­son said on Mon­day he had left the show, that day CEO Ali had said there were "no changes to the show." How­ev­er, Min­is­ter in charge of CN­MG Rodger Samuel con­firmed John­son's post had been on­ly tem­po­rary and no de­ci­sion had been tak­en on a per­ma­nent an­chor for the show. Yes­ter­day, for­mer host Mo­hammed said John­son's swift de­par­ture was em­bar­rass­ing for Gov­ern­ment since in­ter­im CN­MG head, Ken Ali, had tout­ed him as be­ing the best per­son for the job.

Mo­hammed added: "It's dis­ap­point­ing that Andy, who I've known for a very long time, would have been in a sit­u­a­tion like this in the first place. "It was ob­vi­ous­ly very awk­ward for him, be­ing a Gov­ern­ment em­ploy­ee. He was put in a com­pro­mis­ing po­si­tion and clear­ly he could on­ly take so much." "De­spite what tran­spired over the last week or so we re­main very good friends. This is­sue has had no bear­ing what­so­ev­er on that re­la­tion­ship."

Mo­hammed added: "For him to take his leave so quick­ly has re­in­forced the sus­pi­cion that the au­thor­i­ties were sim­ply mak­ing it up as they went along, so to speak. "If all that was said–about my de­par­ture be­ing in the works for some­time and Andy com­ing on board as host was true–then the events of the last cou­ple days would not have tran­spired.

"I'll let the facts speak for them­selves. It will prove whether I was speak­ing the truth or not," Mo­hammed added. COP chair­man Joseph Toney, whose par­ty last week called for Mo­hammed's re­in­state­ment, said from day one of the is­sue there was con­fu­sion up to John­son's de­par­ture.