Diego Martin MP Dr Keith Rowley is calling on Sport Minister Gary Hunt to account for the 172 football tickets he took for Wednesday night’s match between Trinidad and Tobago and El Salvador ’under the guise of them being for parliamentarians’.

TTFF Vice-President Jack Warner on Wednesday revealed that Hunt had requested the tickets six weeks ago stating that he planned to give them to parliamentarians. But Warner said he discovered at 4 p.m. on Tuesday that Opposition MPs, Independent Senators and others including Rowley, Port of Spain Mayor Murchison Brown and Tobago House of Assembly Chairman Orville London had not been invited by Hunt. Warner had to send tickets to these persons, with a letter of apology.

’That a Minister of Government could go to the TTFF and take $86,000 (each of the 172 tickets was worth $500 according to Jack Warner) worth of tickets under the guise of it being for parliamentarians and other high-ranking officials and not distribute it to those people, is scandalous,’ Rowley stated.

’Because if anybody from Laventille, Carenage or St James had done something like that, Mr (James) Philbert and the constabulary would have been knocking on their door asking them about obtaining valuable instruments under false pretences,’ Rowley added.

’He (Hunt) misrepresented himself to the TTFF obtaining a ticket for me and others of similar station. He first said it was for parliamentarians. Well I am a parliamentarian. His second position was that they (the tickets) were for Government Parliamentarians. I still qualify. I am a Government parliamentarian and that does not require the approval of anybody, only the people of Diego Martin West. He (Hunt) deleted my name from this list. The tickets were put in his custody. What became of my ticket?’ Rowley asked.

And to the extent that anybody would have done something like that...they should lose their job. But I suppose, ’ Rowley stated, tongue-in-cheek, ’that is not conduct unbecoming of a Minister; just asking about oversight at UDeCOTT is.’

For the second consecutive day yesterday the Express was unable to contact Hunt, despite leaving messages on his phones.