The Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA ) is fil­ing a re­port with the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty( PCA) of al­leged politi­cis­ing of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) at last night’s sched­uled meet­ing fea­tur­ing a prospec­tive lo­cal gov­ern­ment can­di­date.

NTA po­lit­i­cal leader Gary Grif­fith ex­pressed con­cern about hav­ing the TTPS ap­pear at a Trinci­ty meet­ing fea­tur­ing PNM’s prospec­tive can­di­date for Ma­coya/Trinci­ty Josi­ah Austin. The meet­ing, billed as Crime Is­sues and Se­cu­ri­ty, was arranged in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Arou­ca/Mal­oney MP Camille Robin­son-Reg­is and the TTPS.

Grif­fith claimed the TTPS was be­ing politi­cised but Robin­son-Reg­is dis­missed those con­cerns.

Yes­ter­day, Grif­fith said: “At­tempt­ing to dis­tract or de­flect, Robin­son-Reg­is, in re­sponse to my ini­tial re­lease ex­pos­ing the politi­cis­ing of the po­lice, said that the lo­cal gov­ern­ment can­di­date in ques­tion is a for­mer coun­cil­lor. But on the top of the fly­er is­sued by the can­di­date it clear­ly states prospec­tive can­di­date, which makes it ab­solute­ly po­lit­i­cal.

“An­oth­er ex­am­ple of why this Kei­th Row­ley-led gov­ern­ment is un­able to deal with crime. She missed the point that if some­one is a can­di­date vy­ing for a seat in an up­com­ing elec­tion, and they’re on a plat­form in a pub­lic meet­ing, this is a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing and by hav­ing the po­lice par­tic­i­pate in such a meet­ing, it dam­ages their rep­u­ta­tion as be­ing an in­de­pen­dent or­gan­i­sa­tion.”