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Saturday, May 3, 2025

Tributes continue for Griffith

A devoted public officer

by

Rhondor Dowlat
2353 days ago
20181122
A photo in tribute to Dr Rupert Griffith now circulating on social media following his death earlier today.

A photo in tribute to Dr Rupert Griffith now circulating on social media following his death earlier today.

The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ (UNC) fam­i­ly is deeply sad­dened and has been plunged in­to mourn­ing by the pass­ing of Dr Ru­pert Grif­fith, a man it de­scribed “an ac­com­plished pro­fes­sion­al, de­vot­ed pub­lic of­fi­cer and par­ty stal­wart.”

Grif­fith passed away at the age of 72 on Wednes­day at about 6 pm af­ter ail­ing for some time.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, in ex­tend­ing con­do­lences to the be­reaved fam­i­ly, de­scribed Grif­fith’s death as “dis­tress­ing news to the UNC.” She said the UNC has al­ways held him in high re­gard, adding he was deeply com­mit­ted and served the coun­try with great dis­tinc­tion.

“With his aca­d­e­m­ic achieve­ments, even tem­pera­ment, out­stand­ing work eth­ic and hum­ble per­son­al­i­ty, Dr Grif­fith served the na­tion in sev­er­al ca­pac­i­ties over a 25-year pe­ri­od. He dis­tin­guished him­self in each of his post­ings,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

“He will be re­mem­bered as a hard work­er and ser­vant of the peo­ple, a pos­i­tive role mod­el, a par­ty loy­al­ist, an en­dear­ing col­league and friend. Our po­lit­i­cal land­scape and the coun­try are poor­er with his loss.”

She ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to his wid­ow San­dra Ray Grif­fith, his three chil­dren and oth­er mem­bers of his griev­ing fam­i­ly on be­half of the UNC. She added, how­ev­er, that the par­ty is con­soled by the fact that Grif­fith served his beloved T&T with ho­n­our and faith­ful­ness and “that his life’s work will long be ac­knowl­edged and ap­pre­ci­at­ed. He will be re­mem­bered as a pa­tri­ot of Trinidad and To­ba­go. May he rest in peace.”

More trib­ute from the UNC fam­i­ly poured in from mem­bers who took to so­cial me­dia. Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion coun­cil­lor Jlynn Jen­na Roop­nar­ine re­mem­bered Grif­fith as a leg­end and some­one who has mo­ti­vat­ed her.

“This man played a very ac­tive role in my life by en­cour­ag­ing to be­come the suc­cess­ful woman I am to­day in pol­i­tics. He has pushed and al­ways mo­ti­vat­ed me. His words to me were, you will reach far in life J cause you have the adren­a­line, po­ten­tial and abil­i­ty in you to achieve your goals. You were a leg­end and I will nev­er for­get you.”

More in­fo

Dr Ru­pert Grif­fith’s po­lit­i­cal ca­reer last­ed al­most two decades and in that time he took on var­i­ous port­fo­lios. How­ev­er, he is best re­mem­bered for is his de­ci­sion, along with fel­low MP Vin­cent Lasse, to cross the floor from the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment to the UNC in 1997.

It was a de­ci­sion that helped the prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day’s ad­min­is­tra­tion to slight­ly in­crease the slen­der ma­jor­i­ty it held in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives at that time.

In a re­al sense, it sta­bilised a very ten­u­ous hold on pow­er by the Pan­day-led UNC/NAR coali­tion, formed in the af­ter­math of a 17-17-2 elec­toral dead­lock.

Grif­fith ex­plained then that he had de­fect­ed from the PNM bench­es be­cause of prob­lems with the lead­er­ship of that par­ty, then head­ed by Patrick Man­ning.

“The PNM is now drift­ing rud­der­less be­cause of a lack of lead­er­ship,” he said.

Iron­i­cal­ly, it was Man­ning who gave Grif­fith his start in pol­i­tics when he suc­cess­ful­ly con­test­ed the polls and be­came the MP for Ari­ma.

In the 1991 to 1995 Par­lia­ment, Grif­fith served as Deputy Speak­er, then act­ed as Speak­er be­tween Au­gust and De­cem­ber 1995. He was re-elect­ed un­der a PNM tick­et in 1995 and served as an Op­po­si­tion MP un­til 1997 when he crossed the floor.

As a mem­ber of Pan­day’s Cab­i­net from 1997 to 2000, he served as Min­is­ter of In­for­ma­tion, Com­mu­ni­ca­tion, Train­ing and Dis­tance Learn­ing. Af­ter los­ing the Ari­ma seat in 2000, Grif­fith was elect­ed Speak­er of the House on Jan­u­ary 12, 2001, and served in that ca­pac­i­ty un­til April 2002. His last stint as an MP—this time rep­re­sent­ing To­co/San­gre Grande was in the 2010-2015 Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion of Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.


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