(Trinidad Guardian) Trinidadian Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley said yesterday that someone impersonating the Chief Medical Officer (CMO), sent information to the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) changing Government’s position on hosting the T20 tournament this year.
Addressing a news conference yesterday, Dr Rowley revealed that the information purporting to come from the CMO was sufficiently important for the CPL to respond to Government on the “new terms” given by the culprit.
He said the situation caused Sports Minister Shamfa Cudjoe to speak to the CPL and confirm that Government’s plans to host the tournament had not changed.
The Government has been under fire by Opposition and social media commentators, who claim that the decision to allow 250 people into the country for the tournament, is a slap in the face to thousands of nationals who have applied for exemptions to do the same.
The tournament will be played from August 18 to September 10, entirely in T&T but without fans.
Guardian Media’s television station, CNC3, has the rights to broadcast the tournament.
Dr Rowley said there are people in T&T who are “prepared to undermine the national effort for T&T to fail so they may succeed.” He said the issue of hosting the tournament was for T&T’s livelihood since taxpayers have been paying several millions of dollars a month to keep the 1,000 workers at Hyatt, Hilton and Magdalene Grand in jobs. The players will stay at the Hilton at the expense of the CPL.
He said T&T is now in a sufficiently healthy state to host the tournament and is the only country that can do that. He added that T&T was assessed as number one in handling the virus threat and results showed it can handle the T-20. “So it has nothing to do with bringing in CPL players and leaving out citizens.”