Richard Lord

While al­leged threats to the State from leader of the Ja­maat al Mus­limeen Yasin Abu Bakr were not dis­cussed in Cab­i­net yes­ter­day, the pub­lic squab­ble be­tween the min­is­ters of Sport and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Anil Roberts and Gary Grif­fith, was ad­dressed.

The two have been at odds over whether the Red Steel crick­et team in the CPL T20 fran­chise com­pe­ti­tion may use "T&T" in its name.

At the week­ly news con­fer­ence at her St Clair of­fice, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she had tak­en note of the squab­ble.

The PM said she had "dealt with this mat­ter. We have dis­cussed it to­day. I have made my views known to both min­is­ters and I want to fur­ther in­di­cate I do not ap­prove of pub­lic squab­bling be­tween min­is­ters."

She said such dif­fer­ences should be dis­cussed in the Cab­i­net or Cab­i­net sub-com­mit­tees.

The min­is­ters had open­ly crit­i­cised each oth­er.

Roberts said the team was not a na­tion­al team and was not au­tho­rised to use "T&T." Grif­fith sub­se­quent­ly said that was not so.

She said she was pleased the "the fi­nal match­es (of the CPL) are be­ing played in T&T and Red Steel is amongst those that will be per­form­ing. Those games for T&T are go­ing to be im­mense for pro­mo­tion as a des­ti­na­tion. I am very pleased that Trinidad is the home base for the Red Steel team."

But even af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar spoke about the Red Steel is­sue, it was not ab­solute­ly clear what the sta­tus of the mat­ter was.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she had in­di­cat­ed pre­vi­ous­ly that when­ev­er there were dis­agree­ments be­tween Cab­i­net min­is­ters the Cab­i­net should be the fo­rum to re­solve the dis­pute.

She not­ed that the is­sue had been re­ceiv­ing na­tion­al at­ten­tion, but did not change the price of sug­ar, flour or oil.

Ear­li­er she an­nounced a 20 per cent re­duc­tion in the price of flour and oil pro­duced by the Na­tion­al Flour Mills from Sat­ur­day (Ju­ly 26) to Au­gust 1, for the Eid-ul-Fitr and Eman­ci­pa­tion Day hol­i­days, which are be­ing cel­e­brat­ed on Tues­day and Fri­day next week re­spec­tive­ly.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar did not al­low ques­tions, leav­ing im­me­di­ate­ly to re­sume her Cab­i­net meet­ing.