As a mat­ter of ur­gency, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar must make a clear and de­fin­i­tive state­ment on re­ports that this coun­try's Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er might be im­pli­cat­ed in a Fed­er­al Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tion (FBI) probe of soc­cer-re­lat­ed fraud.So far, all Ms Per­sad-Bisses­sar has said in re­sponse to the wide­ly-cir­cu­lat­ed Reuters News Ser­vice re­port on this mat­ter is that she will not re­ly on pub­lished me­dia re­ports and is seek­ing of­fi­cial cor­rob­o­ra­tion "be­fore mak­ing any de­ter­mi­na­tion or pro­nounce­ment."

The Prime Min­is­ter's cau­tion in com­ment­ing on this mat­ter might have been un­der­stood if Wednes­day's Reuters re­port had been the first time any­one had heard any­thing about the in­ves­ti­ga­tion of a se­nior mem­ber of her Cab­i­net by US agen­cies.How­ev­er, for sev­er­al weeks now, re­ports have been cir­cu­lat­ing in the lo­cal me­dia on this is­sue and the Reuters re­port has served mere­ly to give wider in­ter­na­tion­al at­ten­tion to an is­sue which has se­ri­ous im­pli­ca­tions for T&T, its in­ter­na­tion­al rep­u­ta­tion and even its re­la­tion­ships with its al­lies and part­ners on mat­ters of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

It is now in the pub­lic do­main that Daryan Warn­er, son of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter, is a co-op­er­a­tive wit­ness in a probe in­to al­leged cor­rup­tion in in­ter­na­tion­al soc­cer that has been in progress for sev­er­al months.In those cir­cum­stances, the Prime Min­is­ter's con­tin­ued si­lence in­creas­es sus­pi­cions that she is drag­ging her feet in deal­ing with this very dis­turb­ing de­vel­op­ment. Un­til Wednes­day, in re­sponse to ques­tions from lo­cal me­dia, there had been re­peat­ed de­nials from Mr Warn­er and a state­ment by Ms Per­sad-Bisses­sar that she had no knowl­edge of high-lev­el in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­volv­ing Mr Warn­er and his son Daryan.

Now there is al­most com­plete si­lence from the Prime Min­is­ter and her Cab­i­net in re­sponse to the news, now gain­ing greater trac­tion in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, link­ing the min­is­ter to FBI and In­ter­nal Rev­enue Ser­vice (IRS) in­ves­ti­ga­tions of po­ten­tial vi­o­la­tions of US tax laws and an­ti-fraud laws, in­clud­ing laws against wire and mail fraud. In fact, an un­named of­fi­cial has de­scribed those in­ves­ti­ga­tions as "shap­ing up like a ma­jor case."

Ms Per­sad-Bisses­sar owes it to Mr Warn­er to be fair to him, of course.But the fact is that sto­ries on this top­ic have been pub­lished and broad­cast for weeks now, and as Prime Min­is­ter and head of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, she has had not on­ly the du­ty but al­so the pow­er to car­ry out the nec­es­sary in­ves­ti­ga­tion to as­cer­tain just what is go­ing on.She al­so owes it to the coun­try to state pub­licly what she is go­ing to do about this mat­ter and why she is go­ing to do it. She doesn't have the op­tions of stay­ing silent, or tak­ing too much time in deal­ing with this po­ten­tial­ly ex­plo­sive sub­ject.