Describing Chaguanas West MP Jack Warner’s attacks on the Government in Parliament as “very offensive,” a distressed Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar yesterday walked out of the Lower House shortly after he began his contribution.
Normally composed in the face of criticisms of her Government, the PM rose suddenly yesterday while Warner was on his feet and said his statements were “very offensive” and “out of order.”
She hurriedly exited the chamber and retreated to her office upstairs the Parliament building in Tower D at the Port-of-Spain’s International Waterfront Centre.
In her contribution just before Warner spoke, Persad-Bissessar told the House she was distressed to see the number of international journalists who had arrived in T&T because of the allegations against Warner with regard to his Fifa dealings.
“Here we are now, a focus of the international world, not for the good and great things but because of the actions of one man.”
The PM said T&T’s good international image was now under threat because of Warner and called on him to fix it. She urged him to do all he could to co-operate with US law enforcement authorities and subscribe to due process of law.
Whatever evidence he had, the PM said, he should give to the court and have the matter dealt with once and for all.
“Do not take down this country to whatever place that you may be going to,” she added.
“Co-operate and do what is right so that we can lift, once again, the image of Trinidad and Tobago.”
But an unrelenting Warner continued his attacks after the PM left, warning Persad-Bissessar that the shame and scandal was yet to come and that he would have the last laugh.
“I will have the last laugh, locally and internationally,” he said.
He said he hoped to have the same media coverage when that happened.
He said it would have been good if the international media had reported that it was Persad-Bissessar who passed the Section 34 legislation (later revoked) that would have prevented two people from being extradited to the US.
He was interrupted by Speaker Wade Mark, who told him he was imputing improper motives and warned him “not to go there.”
“Mr Speaker, if you say so, is so,” Warner replied.
Supported by PNM members on the opposition benches, Warner vowed that nobody would jumbie him or set his agenda before time.
Condemning Persad-Bissessar for reading into parliament’s Hansard records the US charges against him in the Fifa indictment, he said in this country people remained innocent until proven guilty. He said the PM’s “judgments” against him, therefore, were mind-boggling.
Responding to her call to co-operate with US authorities in the Fifa scandal, Warner said he had surrendered himself to this country’s courts and had done all he could to co-operate.