Former national security minister Jack Warner says he did not admit to the Prime Minister that he and his family were being investigated by US authorities. Addressing a UNC campaign meeting on Monday night, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar told supporters Warner had admitted it to her. Speaking to reporters at the Dorman Nursery School in Felicity yesterday, however, Warner denied making the comments.
“I said that is totally untrue. I have never told the Prime Minister that,” Warner said when asked if the Prime Minister were lying. “I am not going down that road. I am not saying anything negative about the Prime Minister. She could say things about me, but I would not do that.” Warner also said it was not true he had not travelled overseas while he was National Security Minister.
He said after Monday night’s UNC forum in Caroni, it was evident that the PM had begun to panic about the impending Chaguanas West by-election, in which he will be going up against Khadijah Ameen and the PNM’s Avinash Singh, because he has the support of Chaguanas West constituents. During the forum, Persad-Bissessar defended the decision not to select Warner as the UNC candidate, saying he admitted that both he and his family were subjects of an inquiry by the US government over white-collar crimes.
Warner said, “I find it very ironic that she has panicked, and I have not even peaked as yet. “Therefore all I am saying to her is, I am sorry she has gone down to that level. I promise you guys that I will not go down to that level. I’ll maintain a very dignified level. “You can see that is the hallmark of someone who has panicked. After all, you come to a Monday night forum in Caroni, your heartland, you had 45 people from the whole of Chaguanas West and about 100 people hustling to talk to 145 people.”
He added: “If I were a Prime Minister, I guess I would have panicked also. “When you see the kind of support Jack Warner had at a simple cottage meeting, I would have panicked too, but if I had panicked, I would have still not behaved that way.” Warner also said Persad-Bissessar’s allegation that he refused to leave the country, even to address national security matters, was untrue. “I was in Miami on November 25 last year. I spoke to the Prime Minister from there.
“The Prime Minister asked me to go to Canada, I said no. They asked me to go to Rome, I said no. They asked me to go to India in a massive delegation with government funding and so on, I said no.” He added: “I said to them I had travelled to 176 countries, some of them several times over. I have no intention of going in a plane again to open my legs, take off my pants or take off my belt, hands up and so on. I am not doing that any more. I am tired.”
He said if journalists were to ask the Government about its travelling expenditure for the past three years, the figure would be able to fund the construction of 1,000-2,000 homes in all 41 constituencies. Warner said his speech at Friday’s public meeting at Pierre Road Recreation Ground, Felicity, would be “the mother of all speeches.” But he maintained his fight was not with the PM or the UNC, but with the cabal within the party.
Warner also dismissed Local Government Minister Dr Surujrattan Rambachan’s claim that he was trying to destroy the party. “I don’t see why I will mash up something that I have built and helped to build even when it was in its death throes. Why should I destroy what I had spent all this time and energy for?” Asked if he felt it was too soon for mudslinging, Warner said, “No, I am not surprised. It may get even worse, but I’ll tell you one thing; I will not reciprocate.
“I mean after all, this is only the beginning. I have not even begin to hit the campaign trail yet, I haven’t started and as I just said, she has panicked, and she has panicked too early.”