COP leadership contender Anil Roberts would have preferred the FIFA probe to have gone forward in order to clear Jack Warner's name, rather than resign from FIFA as Warner did.Roberts voiced the view at Tuesday's COP leadership debate at City Hall, Port-of-Spain.On Warner's resignation from FIFA which halted the probe against him, Roberts said he personally would have preferred if the probe had gone to completion and cleared Warner's name "so that people would know the allegations were unfounded."Roberts said he was upset the First Session of Parliament had ended without him being allowed to clear his name on the Privileges Committee issue concerning statements on the Nicky Minaj concert."Your name is all you have," Roberts added.He said it was irresponsible to step down from ministerial position while a probe was on since there could be mischievous intentions leading to a probe.Roberts denied that Warner was financing his campaign.He said businessman Gerry Hadeed was his campaign manager along with Sadiq Baksh and others. He said he was loyal to COP leader Winston Dookeran.
Asked about his plans to prevent "political entrepreneurs" from taking possession of parties, Roberts said campaign finance reform was necessary to deal with this and parties should not be beholden to financiers.Roberts said he aimed to build the party by attracting members of the public, including PNMites.He said he would remain COP regardless of who won the leadership. He added that he was against removal of the gas subsidy, since this now allowed benefits for various sectors.Nalini Dial said she did not have the picong and other advantages of the other candidates, but represented the change the COP wanted.She said parties sometimes "used us, abused us and then excluded us." (GA)