The late delivery of tickets by the Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation to the Ministry of Sport, which was compounded by the severe weather conditions prevailing at the time, accompanied by serious traffic congestion, led to the late delivery and non-receipt of football tickets by Government officials, Sport Minister Gary Hunt explained yesterday.
In an interview with the Express at his Abercromby Street, Port of Spain, office, Hunt said both Rowley and Brown were on the Government's list of invitees to attend last Wednesday's 2010 World Cup qualifying match between Trinidad and Tobago and El Salvador at the Hasely Crawford Stadium, Mucurapo.
"Of course, Rowley's name was on the list. He is a Government member and he is a person for whom I have high regard and respect," Hunt said, dismissing any suggestion that pettiness was the cause of Rowley's non-receipt of an invitation.
Jack Warner told the Express last Wednesday that the invitation list sent by the Sports Ministry to TTFF last Tuesday at 4 p.m. did not include Rowley and Brown. Hunt explained yesterday however that the list sent to Warner was not the final list.
"It is rather unfortunate that Keith's invitation was undelivered. I would have expected that Dr Rowley would have called (the ministry) and we would have made all the arrangements, as we did with Minister Peter Taylor, Minister (Neil) Parsanlal and other Government members who did not receive invitations," he said.
Hunt added that he attempted to call Rowley to "clarify" the issue, but Rowley was about to board a flight.
"He said 'the airplane is about to take off, we can't speak now'," Hunt said, adding that he "would give him a few days and then he would call him (again)".
Warner told the Express last week that he had to provide Rowley, Brown, Opposition MPs and Independent Senators, with tickets and letters of apology, after he did not see their names on the list submitted by the Sports Minister.
But Hunt said yesterday that Government was never responsible for inviting Opposition MPs and Independent Senators. He said after Government refurbished the Hasely Crawford Stadium, it was decided that its allocation of 24 seats in the Minister's box was inadequate. So under the new rental contract, it was agreed that Government would receive 172 seats. He said it was "clearly articulated to the TTFF" that these 172 seats were for Government officials.
He said "in the spirit of collaboration", and in order to facilitate the TTFF's accounting procedures the Sports Ministry agreed to match the tickets and stickers provided by the TTFF, with the invitations sent out by Government. But he said the ministry however only received these tickets from the TTFF the day before the match, and even then the TTFF did not send the stickers, which forced the ministry to dispatch its driver to collect them.
"The next day there was rain, flood, traffic ... so that the end result was some invitations were delivered late, some not at all," Hunt said.