Geisha Kow­lessar

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar must keep Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er "in line" if he is to re­main as a min­is­ter, po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath warned yes­ter­day. But fir­ing Warn­er is eas­i­er said than done, he added.

Ra­goonath's state­ments came in the wake of Warn­er's di­rec­tive that crime sta­tis­tics should be with­held from the pub­lic since re­port­ing fig­ures would lead to fur­ther crime and al­low the PNM to cre­ate more mis­chief.

Such a de­ci­sion by the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter, how­ev­er, has been de­scribed by Ra­goonath as "blot" on the Gov­ern­ment's record.

"The re­cent state­ments made by the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter are a cause for con­cern and could be deemed as dic­ta­to­r­i­al and out of place be­cause he has over­stepped his bound­ary as a min­is­ter and that is some­thing that has to be se­ri­ous­ly con­sid­ered by the prime min­is­ter in terms of keep­ing him in line," Ra­goonath added.

He said, how­ev­er, the Prime Min­is­ter held the fi­nal de­ci­sion whether Warn­er should re­main as a min­is­ter. But since Warn­er car­ried im­mense sup­port both with­in and out of his con­stituen­cy, this was a fac­tor which Per­sad-Bisses­sar could not ig­nore, he said. "The fir­ing of a Her­bert Vol­ney is far dif­fer­ent from the dis­missal of a Jack Warn­er," Ra­goonath said.

"The Prime Min­is­ter can­not turn a blind eye to the sup­port base that Jack Warn­er has as an in­di­vid­ual. "If Jack Warn­er de­cides to leave the UNC and to go in­de­pen­dent, this is the one in­stance where he may beat a po­lit­i­cal nom­i­nee."