BY COREY CONNELLY

Chaguanas West MP Jack Warner is again chiding Prime Minister Patrick Manning’s regional integration thrust.

This time, though, Warner used Jamaica and Belize’s rejection of the proposed economic and political union to underscore his claim that Manning’s overtures were “void of regional acceptance.”

“News headlines throughout the Caribbean point to Manning’’s failed attempt to woo Jamaica and Belize into a proposed political union, the details of which continue to be a mystery to the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago,” he said yesterday in a two-page statement.

The PM had been visiting regional territories in an attempt to acquire support for the economic and political union, scheduled to come on stream by 2011 and 2013, respectively.

But, during a news conference at the Office of the Prime Minister in St Clair yesterday, Manning said T&T did not visit the countries to get signatories.

“We were not blanked,” Manning told reporters, alluding to Jamaica and Belize’s stance on the proposed initiative.

So far, Grenada, St Vincent and the Grenadines and St Lucia have signed on to the arrangement through a Memorandum of Understanding.

Warner regarded Manning’s visit to the countries as “a national embarrassment and a source of humiliation for the people of Trinidad and Tobago.

“PM Manning, with his rapidly disintegrating integration, has once again done well in reserving our top spot on the international list of political jokers,” he added.

Warner called on Manning and Foreign Affairs Minister Paula Gopee-Scoon to apologise to the nation “for this public relations charade.”