(Trinidad Express) People’s National Movement (PNM) Member of Parliament for Laventille East/Morvant, Donna Cox, yesterday distanced her party from Port of Spain Mayor Louis Lee Sing and any involvement with Minister of National Security Jack Warner.
“He (Lee Sing) is not the PNM party,” Cox said yesterday in a telephone interview.
Cox was referring to the current friction between the PNM- appointed Mayor Lee Sing, Warner, Public Services Association (PSA) president Watson Duke and “gangsters” of Laventille.
“We made no agreement and were never informed of any meeting. The PNM knows nothing of it, so find another scapegoat,” she said.
Cox said she heard about the meeting on the ground in her constituency and described it as a “public secret” among the Laventille residents that they were expected to meet with Warner on Wednesday.
“A lot of people knew what was taking place and it is clear somebody not telling the truth,” she said.
She said despite whatever fallout occurred between the two after the first meeting last week and the aborted meeting on Wednesday, she demanded that they both leave the PNM party out of it.
“Everybody in the country knows that they are friends or were friends. The PNM has nothing to do with that,” she said.
With regard to both meetings, Cox suggested Warner may have belatedly recognised the fallout of his presence at a meeting with gang leaders.
“My personal opinion is that he knew he would have gotten some flak for it and tried to save face. All of a sudden he duck out on the meeting and now want to put the PNM in it? It is just more of their usual ‘blame PNM for everything’,” she said.
“When you riding a tiger tail, you have to be careful how to come off. The problem is now we not sure who riding who. Is Warner riding Lee Sing or the other way around?” she asked.
Warner read a statement at Thursday’s post-Cabinet media conference saying he was duped into attending the meeting at Lee Sing’s office.
PNM general secretary Ashton Ford also issued a media release on the issue yesterday saying the party “strongly condemned” Warner’s “wild accusations” on their involvement in any plot to entrap him.
“Minister Warner’s allegations of a plot are therefore not only preposterous but ludicrous,” he said.
“The PNM wishes to assure the national community that the party had absolutely no knowledge of any such meeting between the Minister of National Security and gangsters,” the release said.
“From the day that Minister Warner was appointed the political leader publicly indicated his reservations about the appointment, this public denouncement has continued over the last two years, especially when questions were raised internationally about Minister Warner,” the PNM said.
The PNM said in light of these recent developments, it was renewing its calls for Warner’s removal from Government.
