Works and Infrastructure Minister Jack Warner says he never received any letter from managing director of Country Club Joseph Fernandes, warning about the wall on Saddle Road, Maraval, which was "likely to fail." Warner also said he was not prepared to answer Fernandes. Parts of the wall collapsed during Saturday's heavy downpour. Warner said: "I have never received such an advisory and if he did give it...it ain't come on my desk." He was responding to questions by reporters about an article in yesterday's T&T Guardian in which Fernandes said he wrote a letter to the Ministry of Works in February and attached two reports done by a civil engineer who said the wall "is inadequate for retaining this height of earth and is likely to fall."
The minister was the feature speaker at a luncheon hosted by the Rotary Club of Port-of-Spain at Goodwill Industries Building, Woodbrook, yesterday. Warner, who spoke to the media after the address, said: "I saw in the same article where he is complaining about not being paid for his land and so on. "So I put the two points together and I was able to get a better reading from what he was saying because in the same article he was saying that we owe him $32.7 million for the land and he was complaining about the wall," the minister said. Warner said it was premature to give a cost to repair the wall, since the technical team had "to go out there and do designs and then have the figures."