PADARATH: SMITH LIED TO THE COUNTRY

Princes Town MP Barry Padarath who recently raised issues surrounding the safety of the Brian Lara Stadium, has slammed Sport Minister Daryl Smith for lying to the country regarding the attendance and participation of Indian cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar.

Padarath who last week called for the batting star to disassociate himself from the stadium amidst structural integrity and corruption issues dogging the stadium for the past 10 years said that nationals should follow suit and boycott the event until the structural and engineering problems are addressed.

Padarath had indicated in a press release last week that he felt the government was using Tendulkar in an attempt to sanitize the stadium from its history of scandal and that he was pleased that Tendulkar would not sully his good name by attending or playing at the stadium and he hopes this would continue until all outstanding matters have been effectively dealt with.

The Princes Town MP accused the Minister of Sport of purposely lying to the national population about Tendulkar’s visit as part of a public relations campaign to get locals to buy into attending the opening ceremony.

Padarath stated that on Friday he would once again raise a motion in the Parliament regarding the safety of the stadium since the Minister neither UDECOTT has addressed his concerns about the welds to the stadium, that failed two sets of independent testing’s prior to 2010 that is contained in the UFF Commission of Inquiry.

Further he called on Sport Minister Daryl Smith to come clean regarding the abrupt resignation of the Chairman of the Sport Company, Michael Phillips and provide an explanation to the population regarding newspaper reports of allegations of Phillips resigning over a disagreement with Smith respect to the award of a contract.