For­mer com­mis­sion­er of po­lice Gary Grif­fith was the sub­ject of de­bate in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives yes­ter­day, as Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley told the House that a for­mer CoP had stormed out of a poly­graph test say­ing that he did not like the ques­tions.

Row­ley was speak­ing dur­ing a de­bate on the bill to es­tab­lish a frame­work for poly­graph test­ing.

“Would you be­lieve the said Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, as an ap­pli­cant for the post of Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, be­ing re­quired to do the same thing he asked his of­fi­cers to do ... flat­ly re­fused to be poly­graphed, walk out of the test, dis­con­nect him­self and say he didn’t like the ques­tions,” Row­ley said.

The Prime Min­is­ter did not say who the for­mer com­mis­sion­er was.

He said the for­mer CoP had to be told that if he want­ed to be con­sid­ered as an ap­pli­cant, he had to do the test.

“Well, Madame Speak­er, he so want the po­si­tion, he come back and he hook up again. The re­sults are there for all to know,” he said.

Speak­ing af­ter Row­ley, Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal was the first to in­tro­duce Gary Grif­fith’s name as he re­ferred to a so­cial me­dia post by Grif­fith.

“The Prime Min­is­ter made ref­er­ence to a for­mer com­mis­sion­er of po­lice not want­i­ng or not avail­ing him­self to un­der­tak­ing a poly­graph test as part of re­cruit­ment to the of­fice of com­mis­sion­er of po­lice. Now the Prime Min­is­ter did not name the ap­pli­cant for com­mis­sion­er of po­lice but it led swift­ly on so­cial me­dia to a com­ment by for­mer com­mis­sion­er of po­lice Grif­fith in­di­cat­ing that it was not him, in case the Mem­ber for Diego Mar­tin West want­ed to sug­gest in any form or fash­ion that it was him. It was not and he sub­mit­ted him­self to poly­graph test­ing,” he said.

How­ev­er, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds re­butted when he rose to wind up the de­bate, con­firm­ing that it was Grif­fith who the Prime Min­is­ter was re­fer­ring.

“The Prime Min­is­ter would have raised the ques­tion of poly­graph­ing and men­tioned that a for­mer com­mis­sion­er ... he called no name ... walked out of a poly­graph­ing ex­pe­ri­ence and that was quite ab­solute­ly cor­rect, Madame Speak­er, it hap­pened.

“And to make mat­ters worse, pull the elec­trode off and I was present at the lev­el of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil when the ques­tion of the walk­ing out of the poly­graph by that for­mer com­mis­sion­er, a very re­cent for­mer com­mis­sion­er, the same one who sent the What­sApp to the mem­ber for Oropouche East to­day,” Hinds said.

He con­tin­ued: “He was asked, ‘Did you walk out of a poly­graph, pull off the elec­trodes and walk out,’ and he said ‘yes’ he did. And when asked why, he gave an ex­pla­na­tion that the ques­tions that we asked were not the ques­tions that they were sup­posed to ask.

“When asked fur­ther about it he said those were not the ques­tions you were sup­posed to ask ... those were not the ques­tions that came from the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion. It begs the ques­tion how did you know what ques­tion was sup­posed to be asked? And he walked straight out. I hope the mem­ber for Oropouche East send him back a What­sApp and tell him that,” Hinds said.

Re­spond­ing via a me­dia state­ment short­ly af­ter, Grif­fith de­scribed the Prime Min­is­ter’s com­ment as “mis­in­for­ma­tion”.

“I wish to make it abun­dant­ly clear that on the two oc­ca­sions for the ap­pli­ca­tion of CoP in 2021 and 2022, I was ful­ly poly­graphed and it was whol­ly com­plet­ed. In fact, in 2021, when the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion was not com­pro­mised and not an ap­par­ent in­stru­ment of the Gov­ern­ment, I ac­quired 94 per cent, (20 per cent more than Er­la Christo­pher) and topped that Mer­it List, which in­clud­ed the poly­graph test done on my­self. Had I not com­plet­ed any poly­graph test, then I would not have been short­list­ed and topped the Mer­it List,” Grif­fith said.