Gail Alexan­der

The Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment is not pro­ceed­ing as ex­pect­ed and is lack­ing in con­sul­ta­tion, clear di­rec­tives and plan­ning, says Daryan Warn­er, son of Works Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er. Warn­er was yes­ter­day ex­plain­ing his move to re­ac­ti­vate his PNM mem­ber­ship by at­tend­ing a par­ty group meet­ing at Flagstaff Hill, Port of Spain, on Mon­day night.

Warn­er, who said he holds foot sol­dier sta­tus in the PNM, said: "I went be­cause I was in­vit­ed to get a peek in­to the PNM and what they stand for...I of­fi­cial­ly joined the par­ty 12 years ago but was in­ac­tive. "With the new lead­er­ship and new di­rec­tion, I want­ed to hear what the mes­sage is and if there is any way I can con­tribute," he added.

Asked why he was go­ing with the PNM, since his fa­ther was af­fil­i­at­ed to the PP, Warn­er said: "I don't think be­cause my fa­ther's loy­al­ty is to the PP, I should blind­ly fol­low. "I re­spect the work he's put in­to the PP, but I al­so be­lieve you re­quire con­tri­bu­tion from all par­ties for T&T to move for­ward–and I don't think the PNM is with­out pos­i­tive his­to­ry and suc­cess­es," he said.

"Peo­ple harp too much on PNM's fail­ure and short­com­ings and do not recog­nise the par­ty did a lot for T&T." Warn­er said he in­formed his fa­ther in Ju­ly that he was un­com­fort­able "many things" he saw in the PP." He said: "Jack said I was young and need­ed to be pa­tient. I'm be­ing pa­tient, but I al­so have to be na­tion­al­is­tic and aware."

Say­ing the PP thus far not had not demon­strat­ed to him that they were pro­ceed­ing as was hoped they would, Warn­er added: "There's in­suf­fi­cient con­sul­ta­tion and when I look at the lack of con­fi­dence in the busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment in T&T to­day, the blame does not fall on the PNM." He said the PP need­ed to fo­cus on team build­ing.

"The PP is a col­lec­tion of in­di­vid­u­als that are now vy­ing for the left and right shoul­der of the po­lit­i­cal leader," he said. "I don't think I'm see­ing clear di­rec­tives, on­ly main­ly knee-jerk re­ac­tions and short- sight­ed­ness when it comes to plan­ning. "Some­thing sim­ple as han­dling of the econ­o­my is not be­ing dealt with well, in­for­ma­tion is not be­ing dis­sem­i­nat­ed in the right way.

"The PP has great po­ten­tial but we still have to re­mem­ber and re­mind them that they are there to serve the peo­ple." Asked if the PP was ful­fill­ing its mantra of "Serve the peo­ple, etc," Warn­er said: "If you lis­ten to the peo­ple on the street and COP peo­ple, I don't think so...The gen­er­al mood thus far is be­com­ing more and more neg­a­tive."

He said he had sev­en pri­vate com­pa­nies. "They are the same com­pa­nies I had pri­or to elec­tion, though peo­ple keep telling me they hear I have this state com­pa­ny or the oth­er...I don't." He said he was ap­proached by a high lev­el of the PP lead­er­ship–which he said was not his fa­ther or his broth­er–and it was sug­gest­ed that he put his "hat in the ring" for the Na­tion­al Lot­ter­ies Board for in­stance.

"I com­plied with the re­quest, but did not hear any­thing," he said.

"But that was not any stim­u­lus for me to look at the PNM, the ob­jec­tive is to serve. "I didn't go to the PNM meet­ing be­cause I didn't get a board ap­point­ment. I'm not re­ly­ing on hearsay but in­ter­act­ing with peo­ple to de­ter­mine the best way for­ward for T&T."

PNM ripe for young blood'

In 2011, Warn­er said, "We need hon­est gov­ern­ment not just to out­law cor­rup­tion etc, but al­so in lev­el­ling with peo­ple."I had sig­nif­i­cant in­ter­ests in Cli­co, but I had no prob­lem with Mr Dook­er­an's po­si­tion if his plan was all that T&T could af­ford," he said."I do have a prob­lem with the man­ner in which it was done...He demon­strat­ed a to­tal lack of car­ing when he stopped pol­i­cy­hold­ers' in­ter­est pay­ments and didn't give peo­ple time to put their house in or­der.

"It can't be fair and car­ing for a min­is­ter who ad­vis­es peo­ple to save and be pru­dent to pe­nalise them for the way they've han­dled their sav­ings."

Warn­er said the Cli­co is­sue will have a rip­ple ef­fect on the econ­o­my since many of the 15,000 larg­er de­positers are busi­ness­men who em­ploy hun­dreds of peo­ple and can no longer af­ford to.

"The sit­u­a­tion demon­strat­ed short- sight­ed­ness and un­car­ing and doesn't auger well for good gov­er­nance," he said. "The PNM is ripe for young blood, not nec­es­sar­i­ly my­self but there are var­i­ous tal­ent­ed peo­ple...for in­stance I wel­come the likes of Frankie Khan. "Peo­ple are crit­i­cal of PNM leader Kei­th Row­ley but just like the new Gov­ern­ment, he ought to be giv­en a chance as a new po­lit­i­cal leader. "He's feel­ing his way through...It's too ear­ly to cast him aside."Min­is­ter Warn­er yes­ter­day de­clined com­ment on his son's af­fil­i­a­tion with the PNM.