Warner says he spent $3M paying Panday's personal bills

Jack Warner answered Basdeo Panday Friday night in connection with the $30 million Panday says Warner collected on behalf of the United National Congress (UNC) for the 2007 general election without providing a proper account for it.

It's a nagging question that has come up over and over again. And when the UNC summoned Warner to answer disciplinary charges it was one of the more than two dozens issues listed.

Warner has always dismissed it as nonsense but on Friday night he spoke about it as he went on the attack at a public meeting at Jerry Junction, Carapichaima, in Panday's Couva North constituency.

"If any man had ever given me that kind of money I would have had to account to the man for it and not to Panday!" Warner declared. "But even if what Bas is saying were to make any sense, why should a man give that kind of money to me and not to the leader?" he asked.

Warner told the meeting that Panday's allegation has done "untold damage" to his reputation. "I have had cause to explain this embarrassment to my international friends and corporations and they all have been dismissive of Bas’ foolishness," he said.

"But what has been the final straw for me has been Bas’ inference on a radio program on Monday that because I offered financial assistance to 54 retrenched workers at Chaguanas Borough Corporation that I am a drug lord!

“Me! A man who spent over $3 million on Bas alone in 2007—paying his legal bills, his international travels, paying his court debt to Ken Gordon, paying for rental cars for his children, paying for his computers and Internet services at his home and the list goes on and on.

“I never wanted to disclose these things because I consider them to be very private. But, tonight I feel pained, hurt and aggrieved...How come all the money I have spent on him did not make me a drug lord at that time?

“How come the $1 million bail I am holding on my building for his wife, Oma, for the last four years is not drug money? If I am a drug lord, as he has inferred, why does he not remove his wife’s bail from this drug lord?

“How come all the money I have spent on him did not make me a drug lord at that time, but because I have chosen to assist poor people and their families in Chaguanas, I am a drug lord?

“When I wanted to help the Hindu Credit Union depositors some months ago, he rushed to say that it is mafia money. When I gave nine scholarships to the children of former sugar cane workers last month, he said I was using party funds though I have never even been the party treasurer.

"He even accused me of being a PNM agent... but to accuse me of being a drug lord is the lowest of the lows."

And he offered some advice: "I ask all on UNC’s executive, who cherish their homes and their little ‘kakada’ in the bank to publicly disassociate themselves from Bas’ recklessness,” Warner said.

He had one final note on that. "Should they fail to do so, I promise publicly here tonight, in Couva North, that I will sue all of them individually and collectively and the chips will fall wherever they fall."