Chaguanas West MP Jack Warner yesterday did not seem too bothered by statements made on a People’s Partnership political rally on Monday night by Crime Watch host Ian Alleyne.
Warner described Alleyne’s appearance on the platform at Harris Promende San Fernando as “trumped up”.
On Monday night, Alleyne denied a claim by Warner that he had been approached by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and Attorney General Anand Ramlogan to be Minister of National Security.
The television host also lampooned Warner’s platform style, alluding to the fact that Warner always claims to have bombshells on persons, but constantly defers revelation of these supposed bombshells by saying, “but not tonight”.
“Unlike certain people, I am not going to say, tonight is not the night,” Alleyne said. “I am not going to say, not tonight, next week…not tonight. I am going to say tonight is the night.”
Alleyne continued, “Tonight is the night I never spoke to the PM; I spoke only to the AG related to matters of crime. To Jack Warner remember this, ‘thou shalt not lie!”
Warner was yesterday reluctant to respond to these remarks.
“If Ian Alleyne said so, then fine,” Warner said. “I will talk on Thursday.”
On Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s statement that a vote for the ILP was a vote for the PNM given how third parties split the vote and hand an advantage to the PNM, Warner said, “I don’t have time to take on that. I am not going to speak to that. I am talking Thursday.”
However, National Security Minister Gary Griffith, speaking with the media at the airport last night following the departure of Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar to Panama, said that if Alleyne has access to information on crimes that can be used by law enforcement to arrest people, he would be willing to work with him.
Griffith noted that “anyone who wants to be part of the system for us to go after the criminal elements, and to try to weed them out, I am more than happy and willing and able to work with those individuals, whether they be…political opponents, NGOs, business organisations and especially Mr Ian Alleyne.”
He continued: “The one thing that Mr Alleyne has shown is…what we had lacking for the last few years, which is that access to proper information which can be turned to intelligence and the utilised for successful operations.”
“If it is that we can utilise Mr Ian Alleyne, and he is willing to work with us, I am more than willing. I am looking forward to it,” he added.
On the allegation by Independent Liberal Party interim political leader Warner that his portfolio was offered to Alleyne, Griffith responded that it was “really irrelevant” and he was focusing on the job he has to do.
Source-TNT Newsday
