[www.inewsguyana.com] – Minister of Sport and Youth Affairs Anil Roberts has resigned. Speaking at the post Cabinet media conference at 4.45 p.m., Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar announced that she has accepted Roberts’ resignation, in the wake of several allegations of corruption arising from the Life Sport programme.
Roberts remains Member of Parliament for D’Abadie/O’Meara. Acting President Timothy Hamel-Smith to appoint Rupert Griffith as new minister of sport.
Insisting that he has been cleared of any wrongdoing in the Life Sport audit, Roberts last week said he will not tender his resignation from the People’s Partnership Government.
In May, a video went viral showing showing a person resembling a government minister rolling a substance believed to be marijuana into a cigarette in a hotel room with two women. Last month, Roberts told the PM he has never used drugs, including marijuana, during his tenure as minister and “never taken, used or experimented with illicit or illegal drugs or ever been involved in any form or fashion with prostitutes.”
Persad-Bissessar subsequently said she had no reason to remove Roberts from her Cabinet, since he had given her that explanation in a letter in relation to the controversial ganja video.
Tuesday’s Guardian editorial called for Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar to fire Roberts: “Since Sport Minister Anil Roberts refuses to resign over the Life Sport controversy, it is now up to Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar to fire him from her Cabinet.”
Roberts was first elected to the House of Representatives on Monday May 24, 2010. He was appointed Minister of Sport and Youth Affairs on May 29, 2010.
Before he entered party politics, he was already well known as the swimming coach of Olympic Bronze Medal winner George Bovell III, and as the host of popular television sports show, Spalk. [Trinidad Guardian]
