Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is call­ing on Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to re­con­sid­er his re­fusal to co­op­er­ate with for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith to help erad­i­cate crime in T&T.

Grif­fith, who is now leader of the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance, has called on Row­ley and Per­sad-Bisses­sar to put aside po­lit­i­cal dif­fer­ences to work to­geth­er to for­mu­late a crime plan. Grif­fith said he had the ex­pe­ri­ence dur­ing his time as Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter and Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er to put to­geth­er a team of ex­perts who could come up with vi­able so­lu­tions.

How­ev­er, while Per­sad-Bisses­sar ac­cept­ed Grif­fith’s of­fer, Row­ley, in the Par­lia­ment Wednes­day, re­ject­ed the of­fer out­right say­ing, “I have very good rea­son not to meet with Gary Grif­fith un­der any cir­cum­stances.”

He said he al­ways meets with the Op­po­si­tion in Par­lia­ment but they don’t sup­port the Gov­ern­ment in their crime fight­ing ef­forts.

Yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, the Op­po­si­tion Leader, in a me­dia re­lease, said crim­i­nals must see that there is a unit­ed ef­fort to pro­tect cit­i­zens. She said her par­ty has sup­port­ed the Gov­ern­ment in sev­er­al pieces of leg­is­la­tion since Au­gust 2020. She list­ed that sup­port in: 1. The Sum­ma­ry Courts (Amend­ment) Bill, 2021

2. The Sex­u­al Of­fences (Amend­ment)(No.2) Bill, 2021

3. Firearms (Amend­ment) Bill, 2021

4. The Elec­tron­ic Pay­ments in­to and out of Court (Amend­ment) Bill, 2021

5. The Mu­tu­al As­sis­tance in Crim­i­nal Mat­ters (Amend­ment) Bill, 2021

6. The An­ti-Gang Bill, 2021

7. The Ev­i­dence (Amend­ment) Bill, 2020

8. The Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions (Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice and Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty) Bill, 2020

9. The Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions (Ad­min­is­tra­tion of Jus­tice) Bill, 2020

She al­so said as Op­po­si­tion Leader, she met with the Prime Min­is­ter on two oc­ca­sions to dis­cuss a bi­lat­er­al ap­proach to deal­ing with this is­sue.

“Mul­ti­ple pro­pos­als were put for­ward by the UNC, but Kei­th Row­ley re­fused to con­sid­er these pro­pos­als,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

Mean­while, Grif­fith again re­spond­ed to Dr Row­ley. This time, he said he was the one with good grounds not to meet with the Prime Min­is­ter based on his past ac­tions, but he’s will­ing to put his ego aside to bet­ter serve cit­i­zens.

“The day one is un­able to do that, and puts ego and ar­ro­gance be­fore serv­ing the cit­i­zens of a coun­try, you have lost the moral au­thor­i­ty to rep­re­sent them or to be re­ferred to as Ho­n­ourable,” Grif­fith said.

IN BOX

Op­po­si­tion Leader’s plans for crime re­duc­tion

• In­creased in­vest­ment in ed­u­ca­tion

• Job cre­ation

• So­cial pro­grammes

• Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion poli­cies and plans for pris­on­ers

• Bail re­form

• Up­dat­ed law en­force­ment train­ing

• Ad­just­ments to min­is­te­r­i­al port­fo­lios

• Sci­en­tif­ic im­prove­ments in train­ing, in­ves­ti­ga­tions, and da­ta analy­sis for crime pre­ven­tion

• New leg­is­la­tion such as stand your ground and home in­va­sion laws Page 3 of 3

• In­creased ac­cess to le­gal firearms for cit­i­zens