UNITED NATIONAL CONGRESS (UNC) chairman, Jack Warner, last night accused the People’s National Movement (PNM) of siphoning taxpayers’ dollars to pay for an elaborate plot to tarnish his name.
Speaking at the UNC’s political meeting at La Horquetta, Warner presented a four-page copy of a document which he alleged was an exchange of e-mails to validate this claim.
Warner said the scheme involved Government using taxpayers’ money to have English journalist Andrew Jennings fabricate a story to defame his (Warner’s) name. Jennings is set to address the eighth annual OffshoreAlert Due Diligence Conference in Florida starting tomorrow. - See other story
Prime Minister Patrick Manning, on a PNM platform last week, had signalled his intention to have Jennings’s statement on corruption in FIFA broadcast live locally. Warner is the vice-president of FIFA.
Last night, Warner said he received the plan for the scheme to tarnish his name in a brown envelope under his office door yesterday.
The e-mails took place on Thursday between Washington-based communication firm, Sanitas International, and locally-based advertising firm, Valdez & Torry, Warner claimed. Valdez & Torry is handling the PNM’s marketing campaign for the May 24 general election, he said. The first e-mail sent by Sanitas at 1.16 p.m. on Thursday outlined the entire plot, Warner alleged.
Reading from the e-mail, Warner said, ’Time is clearly not on our side. Everyday goes by the project becomes ever more difficult. Regardless of the conference it is very good to get our hands on (Andrew) Jennings’s info and use it in promotion. We can also help him get his research out on the street to raise the profile. I have a call and an e-mail into Jennings to discuss this and several other outstanding issues regarding the conference and his travel. The conference will be a good opportunity to showcase the overall FIFA corruption with Warner as the puppet master ....
’Every day we wait decreases the chances of success and increases the difficulty. Regardless, this is going to be tough but is critical to the campaign outcome. My recommendation is for us to engage Jennings, get what info he has, facilitate media at the conference for his event and manage interviews and media for him. We can also look to go live at the conference, although I have not seen his presentation I have offered Jennings help with it.
’In fact, it would be better to go live to tape and transmit the information back to Trinidad and Tobago for newscast and for replay and the Government’s station. We have done this before. It would be interesting also to develop a separate event in T&T or make Jennings available with telephone interviews with local media from Miami.
’Time is closing and it will be tough for the client to transfer the necessary funds prior to the needs for us to be in Miami. Funds have to be transferred for Jennings from here, we may have get creative with Valdez & Torry money through a sub-contract to Sanitas and then have the client pay you direct.’
He repeated this part of the statement three times.
Valdez & Torry replied to that e-mail at 3.41 p.m. asking for a decision to be made on the conference, Warner said. The e-mail was also forwarded to PNM chairman Conrad Enill, Information Minister Neil Parsanlal, PNM Public Relations Officer Jerry Narace and Maxie Cuffie, who is the CEO of the Government Information Services Limited (GISL)
Warner later distributed some 500 copies of the information he received under his office door to members of the media and crowd on hand last night. Ending his self-described ’smoking gun’ address, Warner said this alleged plot was just the ’tip of the iceberg’.
Also on the platform last night were UNC Political Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar, COP member Anil Roberts and Stephen Cadiz. Persad-Bissessar also introduced the 23 UNC candidates for the general election, among them former Judge Herbert Volney.
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