For­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ter Mustapha Ab­dul-Hamid has called on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to fire Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er forth­with. Minc­ing no words, Ab­dul-Hamid tore in­to Warn­er at a Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) meet­ing on Har­ris Prom­e­nade, San Fer­nan­do, on Tues­day night. For­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning al­so called on Per­sad-Bisses­sar to fire Warn­er if he re­fused to re­sign. Warn­er was sus­pend­ed as the vice pres­i­dent of FI­FA, af­ter bribery al­le­ga­tions. The meet­ing was held by Man­ning at the end of his sev­en-day walk to protest his sus­pen­sion from Par­lia­ment.

Ab­dul-Hamid said: "I am ashamed of Jack Warn­er. I am ashamed of the UNC. They would like me to be­lieve that Jack Warn­er in FI­FA and Jack Warn­er in gov­ern­ment is two dif­fer­ent peo­ple, try­ing to ar­gue that his con­duct in FI­FA is un­re­lat­ed to his con­duct in gov­ern­ment. "It is not the in­sti­tu­tion, it is the in­di­vid­ual. Ei­ther the in­di­vid­ual has a prob­lem with prop­er ethics and if Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has any in­tegri­ty what­so­ev­er, she will fire Jack Warn­er forth­with." Man­ning, who said as prime min­is­ter he had worked very hard to build the im­age of T&T, said: "Jack Warn­er's con­duct has not been a cred­it to T&T and he ought to demit of­fice as fast as pos­si­ble, pend­ing the out­come of those in­ves­ti­ga­tions. If he will not re­sign, then the prime min­is­ter of T&T who ap­point­ed him must fire him forth­with from the Cab­i­net."

Re­fer­ring to oth­er FI­FA cor­rup­tion al­le­ga­tions against Warn­er, he said: "Now the Gov­ern­ment want to put him as the epiphany of moral ap­ti­tude." Man­ning was crit­i­cal of Per­sad-Bisses­sar's po­si­tion that a man was in­no­cent un­til proven guilty. He re­called that when al­le­ga­tions were made against for­mer PNM min­is­ters Franklin Khan and Er­ic Williams, they re­signed be­fore be­ing charged. "When Mary King was fired was she charged for any­thing? When Calder Hart re­signed for what was he charged?" he asked.

Man­ning ad­vised Per­sad-Bisses­sar to take no­tice of what was hap­pen­ing around the world with gov­ern­ments and lead­ers who have lost favour with the peo­ple. He said that was the main rea­son why he called gen­er­al elec­tion.