Shal­iza Has­sanali

Sport Min­is­ter Anil Roberts says he will re­sign from the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment forth­with if the au­dit in­to the con­tro­ver­sial Life Sport pro­gramme shows that his min­istry has been fund­ing ter­ror­ists, crim­i­nal gangs, a mili­tia and a sprawl­ing palace.On Fri­day, Roberts fi­nal­ly broke his si­lence on the pro­gramme, which Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley has sought to link to the mur­der of promi­nent at­tor­ney Dana See­ta­hal.

In May, the pro­gramme came un­der scruti­ny af­ter it was re­port­ed that a Cara­po-based Ja­maat-Al-Mus­limeen was con­trol­ling the mam­moth share of the Min­istry of Sport's $113 mil­lion spent on the Life Sport pro­gramme, which the Min­istry of Fi­nance had found to be rid­dled with ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties.The co-or­di­na­tor of the pro­gramme is Ra­jaee Ali (oth­er­wise known as R Ali), son of the north-west leader of the Ja­maat, Imam Has­san Ali.

It was re­port­ed that R Ali was de­tained by po­lice for gang-re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ties fol­low­ing the mur­der of See­ta­hal in May.Ten weeks af­ter the is­sue raised its ug­ly head, Roberts, in an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view with the Sun­day Guardian on Fri­day at his Port-of-Spain of­fice, said while some peo­ple may in­ter­pret his si­lence as in­di­cat­ing fear or guilt, he did not want to speak out un­til an au­dit in­to the pro­gramme, re­quest­ed by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, was done.

In June, Per­sad-Bisses­sar had said the re­sults of the au­dit would de­ter­mine the fu­ture of the pro­gramme and whether any ac­tion would be tak­en against Roberts.

End of po­lit­i­cal ca­reer

Roberts said: "If it is proven that a pro­gramme I con­cep­tu­alised to help poor black peo­ple is fund­ing ter­ror­ists, crim­i­nal gangs, and an armed mili­tia of 250 men in a palace in Cara­po...a huge com­pound from which they can train, op­er­ate and ter­rorise the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, I will re­sign forth­with."

He said if the au­dit showed "that the pro­gramme was giv­ing mon­ey to a ter­ror­ist or­gan­i­sa­tion to the tune of $1.5 to $3 mil­lion month­ly, had 1,400 ghost names with alias­es such as Michal Jack­son, Madon­na, Be­y­once and Kanye West, spent $8 mil­lion on a sports day for ban­dits, rob­bers and crooks, as soon as that au­dit comes out, the Prime Min­is­ter will not have to call me. I will write my res­ig­na­tion im­me­di­ate­ly. If that hap­pened un­der my watch, I do not de­serve to sit in this chair and be the Min­is­ter of Sport in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

That will be the end of my po­lit­i­cal ca­reer."Last month, Diego Mar­tin North East MP Colm Im­bert said in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives that an armed mili­tia of about 250 men was be­ing cul­ti­vat­ed and fund­ed through the cor­rupt ad­min­is­tra­tion of the Life Sport pro­gramme.

How­ev­er, Roberts said, if the au­dit gave his min­istry the all clear "many peo­ple may have a lot of apol­o­gis­ing to do...some oth­er peo­ple may have to re­sign too. Let the chips fall where they may be­cause some se­ri­ous de­ci­sions across the board will have to be tak­en."He al­so warned that he stayed qui­et be­cause of his dis­ci­pline, but when the con­tents of the au­dit is re­vealed "Anil now start to talk."

De­spite Cab­i­net's ap­proval for Roberts to at­tend a meet­ing at the Com­mon­wealth Games in Glas­gow to­day, he opt­ed to stay put be­cause "I heard the au­dit is soon to come out."The 2013 au­di­tor gen­er­al's re­port, Roberts said, showed that his min­istry had op­er­at­ed above board."You would al­ways have peo­ple who would try a skull. The job of the au­di­tors is to pick up that and deal with it. If some­one is found to be cor­rupt the po­lice will in­ves­ti­gate and lock up who­ev­er did it."

Roberts said that as for the dai­ly man­age­ment is­sues at his min­istry, in­volv­ing pro­cure­ments, is­su­ing of con­tracts and sign­ing of cheques, "I have no con­trol over that. This is man­aged by re­spon­si­ble em­ploy­ees. If it shows oth­er­wise they will be dealt with."Roberts be­lieves the PNM was try­ing to tar­nish his name and min­istry in or­der to re­claim the D'Abadie/O'Meara seat, which the PP Gov­ern­ment won in 2010.

"All the PNM sees is pol­i­tics. They are so nar­cis­sis­tic. They want to get in­to pow­er. The PNM wants to rewrite the Con­sti­tu­tion and de­cide who are crim­i­nals."

Coun­try's rep­u­ta­tion at stake

Roberts said the al­le­ga­tions levied against the pro­gramme and min­istry by Row­ley, Im­bert and PNM Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi were not on­ly grave and se­ri­ous, but had far-reach­ing im­pli­ca­tions for T&T, as well as in­ter­na­tion­al im­pli­ca­tions."It is some­thing that has im­pact­ed on the coun­try's rep­u­ta­tion do­mes­ti­cal­ly and out­side."

Asked about is­sues raised by Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Gary Grif­fith, who stat­ed that the pro­gramme was fund­ing ghost par­tic­i­pants and ap­prox­i­mate­ly $90,000 in cash was put in­to pa­per bags and giv­en to one per­son to dis­trib­ute to 60 Life Sport par­tic­i­pants, Roberts said, "Well he would have to talk for him­self. I can­not speak for him. May God bless him."Roberts said he met R Ali, who is co-or­di­na­tor of the Cara­po cen­tre, but did not know him or his fa­ther per­son­al­ly.

"I have met all 40 co-or­di­na­tors of the pro­gramme as min­is­ter."He did not de­ny that "most of the par­tic­i­pants" in the pro­gramme had crim­i­nal records."The min­is­ter does not hand-pick any­one. Many of them would have been dead had it not been for Life Sport."He said the pro­gramme was cre­at­ed to pos­i­tive­ly re­shape the lives of "at risk men" who were go­ing down the wrong path.

Dai­ly, Roberts said, peo­ple would tell him "to leave those young black boys to kill one an­oth­er, if they want to be bad. But I came here to help those most in need and of­fer my as­sis­tance."

Roberts said no amount of guns, jail, bul­lets and ba­tons could solve the coun­try's crime prob­lem since the is­sue need­ed a dif­fer­ent ap­proach and one where those par­tic­i­pants could feel ap­pre­ci­at­ed, ac­cept­ed and trust­ed.Ques­tioned about the min­istry's deputy di­rec­tor of Phys­i­cal Ed­u­ca­tion and Sport Ruth Marchan who claimed her life was threat­ened, Roberts said, "any­one who is be­ing threat­ened is a se­ri­ous thing...they should go to the po­lice. Let the po­lice han­dle it. Oth­er than that, Hol­ly­wood makes lots of movies."

Life Sport stained for life

With all said and done, Roberts said, Life Sport was now stained for life–a stain that would be hard to re­move or cleanse."If Life Sport is stained we will come up with some­thing else. But those who stained it, would they be men or women enough to say they were wrong and apol­o­gise? I don't think so."The PNM, Roberts said, has his­tor­i­cal­ly "been a curse on black peo­ple in Trinidad and To­ba­go" with their poli­cies.

"The PNM hates black peo­ple. I was born a PNM. Their poli­cies have en­sured that black young men re­main the high­est risk [pop­u­la­tion] in so­ci­ety."Of the 2,097 par­tic­i­pants in the pro­gramme, Roberts said, "at least 98.8 per cent are Africans, with the oth­er 1.2 per cent be­ing dougla and In­di­ans."He said, "That is fright­en­ing for Row­ley be­cause they de­pend on black peo­ple stay­ing poor and im­pov­er­ished and be­hold­en to the great czar of the PNM."

He said the PP Gov­ern­ment would not keep peo­ple in star­va­tion and beg­ging for hand­outs.

Pulled in by PM

Roberts said me­dia re­ports of R Ali col­lect­ing about $1.5 mil­lion a month in prof­it and rak­ing in about $18 mil­lion in the last year was what had prompt­ed the PM to call for an au­dit."As soon as this al­le­ga­tion was made, wher­ev­er they came from, I was called in by the Prime Min­is­ter."Roberts said he ex­plained his side of the sto­ry to Per­sad-Bisses­sar."I told her I don't know any­thing about that."

Roberts said af­ter the PM had lis­tened to him, "her ex­act words to me were 'these are grave al­le­ga­tions and it must be in­ves­ti­gat­ed'."He said he agreed whole­heart­ed­ly with the PM, who in­formed him that she would shift the pro­gramme to the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry "where it was in­tend­ed to go any­way be­cause of its an­ti-crime ini­tia­tive. I was in full agree­ment."

Shan­dell–a tow­er of strength

"Unadul­ter­at­ed may­hem."That's how Roberts de­scribed those last ten weeks of his life af­ter the Life Sport pro­gramme was put un­der the mi­cro­scope and at­tacked from all sides.In the last 70 days, Roberts said, he was un­der "ab­solute stress" due to the dai­ly on­slaught at the hands of the PNM and the me­dia."I thought about my young, beau­ti­ful, preg­nant wife and the pres­sures and ten­sion she had to be go­ing through. She is now 23 weeks preg­nant. For the last ten weeks she had to be go­ing through stress, which she didn't ask for."

Last De­cem­ber, Roberts mar­ried Shan­dell, 22."Yes, she knows she mar­ried a politi­cian, but for a young moth­er to be go­ing through those crit­i­cal weeks, from 13 to 23 weeks of her preg­nan­cy with all that un­nec­es­sary stress and wor­ry, I must say she is a tow­er of strength. She han­dled it bril­liant­ly." Luck­i­ly, Roberts said, both moth­er and ba­by were in good health.Roberts said even his de­ceased moth­er was un­fair­ly tar­get­ed.

He said so­cial me­dia was the most dan­ger­ous in­ven­tion known to man, as cow­ards hid be­hind com­put­ers to as­sas­si­nate his char­ac­ter and spew their un­sub­stan­ti­at­ed garbage.

Howai to get re­port this week

Con­tact­ed on Fri­day, Cheryl Lala, strate­gic com­mu­ni­ca­tions ad­vis­er to the Fi­nance Min­is­ter, said the au­dit in­to the Life Sport was in its fi­nal stages of prepa­ra­tion. "It is be­ing re­viewed by the CAU be­fore be­ing pre­sent­ed to the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance."She did not say, how­ev­er, when it will be pre­sent­ed to the min­is­ter. The Sun­day Guardian un­der­stands that Howai is ex­pect­ed to re­ceive the re­port ear­ly this week.