Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley is us­ing his ‘Gary Grif­fith ta­ban­ca’ as an ex­cuse to avoid the an­ti-crime talks with the Op­po­si­tion.

“Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley needs to man up, get over Gary Grif­fith and put the cit­i­zens of this coun­try first!” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said yes­ter­day.

And de­spite the stalled an­ti-crime talks, Per­sad-Bisses­sar main­tained the UNC re­mains ready and will­ing to help the Gov­ern­ment fight crime.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar lev­elled the ac­cu­sa­tion at Row­ley fol­low­ing his com­ments at a me­dia brief­ing yes­ter­day, where he ac­cused the Op­po­si­tion of re­fus­ing to meet.

The dis­cus­sions pro­posed since Sep­tem­ber have gone nowhere be­yond cor­re­spon­dence be­tween both sides.

Af­ter At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour, on No­vem­ber 4, asked for the names of the Op­po­si­tion’s team mem­bers by No­vem­ber 9, Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­fused to pro­vide them, since she said she was await­ing Row­ley’s re­ply to her Oc­to­ber 14 let­ter seek­ing clar­i­fi­ca­tion on sev­er­al is­sues con­cern­ing the talks.

He has not replied to date and did not give any in­di­ca­tion of when he might do so yes­ter­day.

But Per­sad-Bisses­sar, in a state­ment, said, “Af­ter re­turn­ing from an­oth­er tax­pay­er fund­ed trip abroad, which has again earned no re­sults for the peo­ple of our coun­try, Kei­th Row­ley spent his press con­fer­ence side­step­ping crit­i­cal is­sues. In­stead, he de­fend­ed his en­joy­ment of tax­pay­er funds on these lav­ish trips and used his ‘Gary Grif­fith ta­ban­ca’ as an ex­cuse to avoid the an­ti-crime talks.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Row­ley had skirt­ed around the main is­sues raised in her let­ters to him on the talks.

“He clear­ly states that he’s not com­ing to the ta­ble for crime talks. He be­lieves he can ap­point five of his worst min­is­ters to these talks. Five peo­ple who have a record of fail­ure, in­com­pe­tence and dis­hon­esty,” she added.

“He has failed to ac­knowl­edge my Oc­to­ber 14, 2023 let­ter seek­ing clar­i­fi­ca­tion and rais­ing per­ti­nent ques­tions about the dif­fer­ences in con­tent be­tween his two let­ters that were sent re­gard­ing crime talks.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­leged, “And he is now out-and-out ly­ing to give the im­pres­sion to the pop­u­la­tion that the Op­po­si­tion stat­ed that Gary Grif­fith must at­tend and this was a ‘deal break­er’. He has res­ur­rect­ed his weird love/hate re­la­tion­ship with Gary Grif­fith.

“He sim­ply can­not get over his ‘Gary Grif­fith ta­ban­ca.’ Row­ley needs to man up, get over Gary Grif­fith and put the cit­i­zens of this coun­try first.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar urged the Prime Min­is­ter to “find the time” to meet with stake­hold­ers and “lead the fight” against crim­i­nals.

She added, “The UNC re­mains ready, will­ing and able to join hands with any­one, in­clud­ing the Gov­ern­ment to fight crime in the in­ter­est of the peo­ple of T&T.”

Gary: Don’t mis­lead T&T

Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance leader Gary Grif­fith, in a video re­sponse yes­ter­day, called out Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to say what he has to say, “...if you name man.”

Grif­fith ac­cused Row­ley of try­ing to mis­lead the coun­try “in speak­ing about things that he wished he could say but he can’t say be­cause the court has pre­vent­ed him from do­ing so”.

Grif­fith, not­ing T&T’s crime sit­u­a­tion, said when he was po­lice com­mis­sion­er, pub­lic trust and con­fi­dence in the TTPS was 59 per cent.

“It went down to eight per cent af­ter I left, af­ter one year - that was your do­ing, Kei­th Row­ley! Un­der my watch it was the high­est re­duc­tion in vi­o­lent crime in 17 years. Since I left, it has now been the high­est spike in crime - that’s your do­ing,” Grif­fith said.

He said on his de­par­ture in Au­gust 2021, crime was the num­ber four con­cern be­hind health, ed­u­ca­tion and the econ­o­my.

“It’s now the ma­jor con­cern in T&T- that’s your do­ing. You’re re­spon­si­ble for the sit­u­a­tion T&T’s in right now!”

Grif­fith claimed Row­ley had the “au­dac­i­ty” to state that he couldn’t say what he want­ed to say be­cause of the court block­ing him. Call­ing on Row­ley to be “hon­est”, he called him out on the Jus­tice Stan­ley John TTPS au­dit re­port and al­so cit­ed the Email­gate mat­ter re­vealed in Par­lia­ment. He al­leged Row­ley “did it with Email­gate” and hoped he “could have done it again.”

Grif­fith added, “If you name man and have bel­ly for once in your life, don’t mis­lead the coun­try to say you can­not make com­ments. You can­not make com­ments in Par­lia­ment. That’s what the courts pre­vent­ed you from do­ing, you’re free to make any com­ment in pub­lic. If you name man, I dare you.”

Grif­fith said if Row­ley made any com­ment about him which was a lie, he would sue him for every cent he has.

He said the coun­try was in the cur­rent po­si­tion since Row­ley couldn’t “swal­low his pride and ego” to do what’s right for T&T, and it had to “con­tin­ue to drown in blood” due to the Gov­ern­ment’s fail­ure to pro­vide safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty, adding Row­ley pre­ferred not to have the sup­port of peo­ple who could make T&T safe.