The media and President Anthony Carmona have been described as “biggest failures” of this country by chairman of the Independent Liberal Party (ILP) Jack Warner.
Warner, who was the guest at the Port-of-Spain Rotary Club yesterday, also waded in on it, questioning what had it done to uplift the country.
He said: “The biggest failure in the country are the media because if anybody in this country should be the fourth estate in this country are the media... the media... one of the dailies they so lodge in the Government bosom you could hardly make it out and surprisingly they have a new editor.
“Another daily is opposed to the Government and the third daily is neither fish nor fowl. How could you run a society that way? And when you ask them what’s happening they say they can’t do anything because they will lose advertising,” Warner added.
He said it was better to complain and lose business than lose a country.
Warner also added his voice to the criticism regarding the pre-action protocol letter to comedienne Rachel Price requesting she cease and desist from discussing the attire of Carmona’s wife, Reema.
The letter was sent two Fridays ago to Price by attorneys acting on behalf of Carmona’s wife and the Office of the President in respect of “certain defamatory statements.”
Price has maintained that she never received any legal letter.
The complaint arose out of Mrs Carmona’s dress, showing her mid-section exposed as she stood alongside a conservatively-dressed Ban Soon-Taek, the wife of United Nations General Secretary Ban Ki-Moon, at a United Nations function for first ladies in New York.
“The biggest failure in all is President Carmona. What has he done in all this sea of corruption and nepotism and the first time he makes a stand is to sully the Office of the President by writing a
pre-action protocol letter against a comedian.
“Yuh see next year every calypsonian and they mudder will be singing about him and his wife. Didn’t the government cross the line so many times? What have you said?” Warner asked.
Calling on the Rotary Club to play a more active role, Warner said: “If ever a country needed a Rotary to stand up the time is now. Saving this country must be a collective effort and there are no halfway measures to do so.”
On the deadly Ebola virus Warner said T&T was unable to combat dengue and Chik V, far more Ebola.
“Pray to God it does not reach here because I tell you something if it does we all in trouble,” Warner said.