A disappointed Chaguanas West MP Jack Warner yesterday chastised Sports Minister Gary Hunt, whom he said requested 172 tickets ’for parliamentarians’ for last night’s football match, but did not include in this list a single Opposition MP (Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday included).
The list also did not include any independent senator or even his own colleague, Dr Keith Rowley, whose vote gives the Government a special majority in the House of Representatives.
The Express was unable to reach Hunt for him to confirm that he did receive 172 tickets.
Warner told the Express that six weeks ago, Hunt met with the Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation and himself and requested an increase in his allocation of (free) tickets. ’From the 24 seats he has had in the last 20 years for the minister’s box, he allocated unto himself 172 seats,’ Warner said. He added that Hunt told the meeting that those seats were for parliamentarians and ambassadors, among others.
’He told us not to invite them because they would do so through his invitations that he would issue parking stickers, they would pass through the castro gate (at the stadium), and that he had made a special place for them to be entertained etc,’ Warner said.
’My interpretation was that all parliamentarians, and I mean all because it is 172 seats he took, would be invited. But when I asked him for his invitation list, which I received at 4 p.m. yesterday (Tuesday), I saw not a single UNC (United National Congress) parliamentarian or independent senator.
So I called him and asked, ’Minister, how could you not send invitations for Opposition parliamentarians and independent senators?’
He said, ’I told you it was for Government parliamentarians.’ So I then asked him, ’Minister, then why 172 seats (for Government parliamentarians)?’ He (Hunt) replied, ’Because we have permanent secretaries and so on,’ Warner recalled.
Warner said when he returned to the minister’s invitation list, he saw that Tobago House of Assembly Chief Secretary Orville London was not invited. He said Hunt told him he forgot London. ’But then I noticed that he didn’t invite Keith Rowley,’ Warner said, adding that he checked with Rowley to confirm this.
’I had to go this morning and invite Keith Rowley and send him a letter of apology. I had to send to Mrs Beverly Drayton (secretary to the Opposition Leader) invitations for all the UNC members of the House of Representatives and the Senate, with a letter of apology in each envelope. And then I also had this morning to call all the independent senators and apologise to them and send them invitations.’
Port of Spain Mayor Murchison Brown also was not invited. ’How could you play football in Port of Spain and not invite the mayor?’ Warner asked.
He said others such as Deputy Speaker Pennelope Beckles and Minister Peter Taylor did not receive a ticket (although their names were on the minister’s list), and he (Warner) had to send them tickets as well. Warner said he assumed that there was some ’administrative delay or bungle’ as to why this happened.
But he said he told Hunt that after this football match between Trinidad and Tobago and El Salvador, they would have to sit down and review the manner in which invitations are issued.
’If you want 172 invitations for parliamentarians, it can’t be for PNM (People’s National Movement) only,’ Warner said, adding that in the past, he (Warner) invited all members of Parliament, regardless of political persuasion, to matches.
