(Trinidad Express) The opposition continues to train its guns on National Security Minister Jack Warner calling for yet another probe into “gifts” he received and distributed while he held the position of FIFA vice-president.
Speaking at the Opposition Leader’s bimonthly press briefing, Charles Street, Port of Spain, Opposition Senator Fitzgerald Hinds, announced the party was now seeking an investigation relating to an audit done by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) into the FIFA Asia operations.
International media reports last week stated that PwC, an international auditing firm, hired by FIFA to look at the affairs of the Asian football league which was headed by Qatari Mohamed Bin Hammam, found during the audit, that Bin Hammam had given Warner US$250,000.
“In fact the letters are to be dispatched in a few moments; asking the Integrity Commission, one, to investigate and determine whether, since PwC found as a fact that a gift of US$250,000 was made to Mr Warner, whether that gift, is a gift within the meaning of the Integrity in Public Life Act. And whether it was declared by Mr Warner, since 2008, he having become a person in public life in 2007,” Hinds said.
Hinds said letters will also be forwarded to the Commissioner of Police Dwayne Gibbs and the Director of Public Prosecution Roger Gaspard and the Integrity Commission to take another look at Warner’s involvement in the high profile FIFA scandal that took place at the Hyatt Regency, Port of Spain, last year in light of the findings of the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Warner, then president of both CONCACAF and the Caribbean Football Union, hosted a meeting in May 2011, during the election campaign of Bin Hammam who was contesting the position of FIFA president.
During that meeting at the Hyatt Regency hotel, in Port of Spain, representatives of several Caribbean football bodies reported receiving US$40,000 (totalling US$1m) each in brown envelopes.
Hinds said in relation to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) findings last week, Bin Hammam did not personally distribute to 25 persons, US$40,000 each at the Hyatt Regency, Port of Spain. “It has become very clear, as it now stands the police are duty bound to revisit this issue with Mr Jack Warner, and to ask Mr Warner where did this US$1 million, which was distributed in TT$40,000 packages, to 25 persons come from.”
Hinds said Warner is now duty bound to answer these questions. Warner has since resigned all of his positions relating to football activities and maintains his innocence.
He said a separate letter will be written to the Integrity Commission, requesting that it investigates and determine, now that Warner has made it clear that he and his family have a legal interest in the Centre of Excellence, in Macoya, whether he has declared his interest in that building.
“And more than that, whether any income that building would have derived since his ownership of by way of rents or leases et cetera, whether these have been consistently declared to the Integrity Commission in accordance with the law that governs its operations,” Hinds said.
Hinds also called on Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar to say what her thoughts were now in light of the PwC findings.
“Today in the face of all that we have discussed the PM is coldly silent. She and her hapless Attorney General who seems to have enthusiasm to investigate everything concerning everybody else but a Minister of Government. And we call on the PM to tell the people of Trinidad and Tobago, what is her current take on these very recent developments,” he said.
