T&T PM announces changes to controversial Life Sport programme

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, May 25, CMC - Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar has announced the removal of the controversial multimillion-dollar Life Sport programme from the Ministry of Sport to the Ministry of National Security.



In what is being seen as another blow to embattled Sport Minister Anil Roberts, the prime minister said she has taken note of concerns raised in the public domain about the programme.



Roberts is facing questions over misspending under the Life Sport programme and concerns that it is being used to fund the criminal activities.



Speaking at the People’s Partnership fourth anniversary rally late Saturday, Persad Bissessar also indicated her intention to instruct the Ministry of Finance to conduct a full audit into the programme and move the management of the programme to a new ministry.



To date, the Government has spent over TT$150 million on the programme, which the Ministry of Finance has discovered is riddled with irregularities.



According to reports carried in a series published by the Trinidad Express Newspaper, the Life Sport programme has been used by the Government to fund the Jamaat al Muslimeen’s operations.



Concerning another matter, the Prime Minister also referred to a video showing a man resembling a Government Minister wrapping what appears to be a marijuana cigarette - that was made public a year ago and resurfaced on the eve of the protest march against her Government.



“Recently you would have seen a television station airing a video alleged to be that of a Cabinet minister indulging in illicit activity. My response remains as it has always been. I will examine the facts, and then whatever decision must be made in the national interest, I will make it without fear,” said Persad-Bissessar.



“But even as I look at the facts, what I find very unsettling is that it was the same video that, over one year ago the Opposition Peoples National Movement (PNM) was the first to start making comments about after it appeared in a weekly newspaper,” she said.



To date, Roberts has neither confirmed nor denied he was the man in the video.



Meanwhile, for the first time since 2011, the Prime Minister’s approval rating has increased.

According to a poll commissioner by the Express, 48 per cent of respondents interviewed approve of the job Persad-Bissessar is doing as prime minister compared to 42 per cent who disapprove.

Her approval rating of 48 per cent compared to 37 per cent in 2013 and 38 per cent in 2012.



However, the opposition PNM believes that the country needs to placed on a path to recovery. In a statement on Saturday, Opposition Leader Keith Rowley said national recovery could only come from PNM Government “when the long suffering population votes out the current disaster that now exists.”



“A recovery is sorely needed but it is because the UNC and its Partners have abused, corrupted mismanaged, stolen and disgraced this nation to the point of collapse and failure in so many areas that the prospect of one more year of this type of Government could be taking us past the point of no return for all of us and our children to come,” he said.



“This is undoubtedly the worst Government in our nation's history. We do desperately need a national recovery after four intense years of their scandals, their excesses, their greed, incompetence and spitefulness. However, there is hope for recovery. That will only come under the PNM, so the country needs the Elections NOW!!! Save T&T,” the opposition leader continued.



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