KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley says he has good rea­son not to meet with Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance leader and for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith.

Row­ley made the com­ment while re­spond­ing to a ques­tion from Na­pari­ma MP Rod­ney Charles in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, on whether he would con­sid­er Grif­fith’s re­cent re­quest to meet with him and Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar on crime.

“Madame Speak­er, as chair­man of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil of Trinidad and To­ba­go, I have very good rea­sons not to meet with Gary Grif­fith un­der any cir­cum­stances. And in so far as meet­ing with the Op­po­si­tion is con­cerned, I meet with them all the time in this cham­ber in front of you, Madame Speak­er, and they have ob­struct­ed every sin­gle at­tempt we made to fight crime in this coun­try,” Row­ley said.

How­ev­er, Row­ley not­ed that he of­ten con­sults with peo­ple with crime-fight­ing ex­per­tise.

Row­ley and Grif­fith had been at odds since the lat­ter was the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP), with Grif­fith blam­ing the PM for the se­ries of events which led to the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion’s mer­it list for CoP, which he topped, be­ing with­drawn af­ter be­ing pre­sent­ed to for­mer pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes.

Af­ter Gri­fith’s term came to an end, how­ev­er, Row­ley said pub­licly that he had lost con­fi­dence in Grif­fith as CoP.

In a video mes­sage on Sun­day, how­ev­er, Grif­fith called on both Row­ley and Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to bury their past and meet so they could co-or­di­nate on an an­ti-crime plan, hop­ing the UNC would al­so change its ap­proach and sup­port the Gov­ern­ment in this ini­tia­tive. He said he had a proven track record of re­duc­ing crime from his time as Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty in the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship regime and CoP.

In an im­me­di­ate re­sponse yes­ter­day, Grif­fith said the Prime Min­is­ter did not just re­ject him but al­so the cit­i­zens who were in sup­port of his pro­pos­al. He said those who couldn’t care about par­ty cards or af­fil­i­a­tion, and who in­sist­ed that some­thing be done, were re­ject­ed.

He ref­er­enced yes­ter­day’s Guardian Me­dia Peo­ple’s Say poll, which showed 85 per cent of re­spon­dents were hope­ful the Prime Min­is­ter would ac­cept his of­fer.

“Our na­tion is at its dark­est over with record num­ber of mur­ders and a scourge of crim­i­nal­i­ty that ap­pears out of the con­trol of the pow­ers that be and at a time where we should en­cour­age all hands on deck,” he said.

“The call from the peo­ple and of­fers of sup­port were wrong­ly re­ject­ed. This has sent a clear mes­sage to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, that their voic­es are not val­ued and will be re­ject­ed.”

Al­so yes­ter­day, Charles asked Row­ley to tell the House his rea­sons for dis­agree­ing with the Op­po­si­tion’s rec­om­men­da­tion to sep­a­rate the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty in­to two port­fo­lios: Min­istry of Home Af­fairs and Min­istry of De­fence. The UNC made the rec­om­men­da­tion, say­ing there were chron­ic in­sti­tu­tion­al chal­lenges fac­ing sev­er­al crit­i­cal agen­cies un­der the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, in­clud­ing the Fire Ser­vice, De­fence Force, Prison Ser­vice, Po­lice Ser­vice and the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre.

But Row­ley said it sim­ply did not make sense. He said Charles saw news from the Unit­ed States, where the coun­try has a de­part­ment deal­ing with home se­cu­ri­ty and na­tion­al de­fence.

“I sim­ply want to draw to the at­ten­tion of the mem­ber for Na­pari­ma, who I sus­pect has a hand in this, that the Unit­ed States has 340 mil­lion peo­ple and a num­ber of en­e­mies, which re­quires a De­part­ment of De­fence. Trinidad and To­ba­go is in no such po­si­tion. There­fore, to talk about our prob­lem in solv­ing crime is to have a Min­istry of De­fence and a Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty is copy­cat goob­ley gook non­sense.”

Charles then asked Row­ley if he was sat­is­fied with the per­for­mance of Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds, giv­en there were col­laps­ing in­sti­tu­tions un­der his watch.

Row­ley replied that the Gov­ern­ment was quite hap­py to know the Op­po­si­tion had a fetish and saw every­thing in T&T as col­laps­ing. He said there was no col­lapse, as they failed in at­tempts to see the coun­try’s down­fall.

“I can tell the coun­try that I am sat­is­fied with the min­is­ters, and in the event that I am not, you will see the ap­pro­pri­ate ac­tion tak­en.”

Row­ley said Charles had a good rea­son why he did not want a par­tic­u­lar per­son to be Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty but told him there were loud­er calls in the Op­po­si­tion for him to leave.