ALL MEMBERS of Parliament have not received invitations for the opening ceremony of the Fifth Summit of the Americas, which will take place at the Regency Ballroom on Hyatt Regency Hotel in Port of Spain on Friday night.

Checks by the Express revealed that ministers have been invited in their ministerial capacity.

The Presiding Officers-House Speaker Barry Sinanan and President of the Senate Danny Montano-have also been invited, as well as the Opposition Leader, Basdeo Panday. It is understood that Deputy Speaker, Pennelope Beckles, has also received an invitation.

Members of State enterprises and special purpose State agencies have also been invited.

But Independent Senators, Opposition MPs and Government backbenchers, up to yesterday, had not received invitations.

Independent Senators were not eager to express their views on record. But one Independent Senator, in confirming that the Independent MPs had not received invitations to date, declined to go on record, saying: ’I don’t want to appear as if I am pleading for an invitation.’

UNC MP, Jack Warner, who attended the inauguration of US President Barack Obama (in his capacity as Vice President of FIFA), also confirmed that he had received no invitation to any aspect of the summit, neither the opening nor the dinner which takes place on Saturday.

He said, however, that Obama sent a letter to the president of FIFA, Sepp Blatter, asking for FIFA’s support for the US bid to host the 2018 World Cup.

’I was told that very soon we shall be meeting President Obama in Washington to discuss the matter with him. So I will wait. If we meet him then I’ll be there. I am not worried. If Mr Manning and they don’t want to invite me, I have met kings and queens, I have no problem with that,’ Warner said.

The invitation to the opening read as follows: ’On the occasion of the Fifth Summit of the Americas, the honourable Patrick Manning has the pleasure to invite you to the opening ceremony on Friday April 17 at the Regency Ballroom, Hyatt Regency Trinidad at 5 p.m. Dress: business attire. Guests are asked to be seated by 3.30 p.m. Cocktails to be served from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.’ The invitation is nontransferable.

Accompanying the invitation is a procedural guideline for getting to the Hyatt. Guests are advised to go to the Hasely Crawford Stadium in Mucurapo, present their invitation and park their cars. They must ensure they have their invitations and a form of picture ID before proceeding to the scanning area. Once their name is verified, they would be presented with some form of identification for the relevant event. They would then be shuttled from the stadium to the Hyatt Conference Centre and ushered into the Ballroom.

There is another function on the Saturday-

a dinner which starts at 8 p.m. -Ria Taitt