PNM distances itself from Lee Sing and Laventille meeting

MP Donna Cox: "Find another scapegoat"

The MP for Laventille East/Morvant, Donna Cox, told the Express newspaper Friday Louis Lee Sing "is not the PNM party". And she distanced herself and the opposition party from the mayor of Port of Spain.

Cox was responding to a controversial meeting that Lee Sing arranged with officials and alleged gang members. National Security Minister Jack Warner has accused Lee Sing of "duping" him to attend the meeting, which included the head of the Public Services Association (PSA), Watson Duke.

"We made no agreement and were never informed of any meeting. The PNM knows nothing of it, so find another scapegoat," she told the paper.

Cox said, "A lot of people knew what was taking place and it is clear somebody not telling the truth," she said. She said Warner and Lee Sing are "friends" and they should leave the PNM out of the matter.

Warner told reporters at Thursday's post-Cabinet media conference he was duped into attending the meeting at Lee Sing's office and that it was an attempt at entrapment. However the general secretary of the party, Ashton Ford, issued a statement Friday denying that it has anything to do with it.

"Minister Warner's allegations of a plot are therefore not only preposterous but ludicrous," Ford said. The PNM went further and asked for Warner to be fired.