(Trinidad Express) Opposition was never serious about finding solutions to crime because when they feel that when crime is raging it is a “political bonanza” for them, says Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley.
“They do not want any improvement in the crime situation,” Rowley said as he addressed the media yesterday at a news conference at the Diplomatic Centre, St Ann’s. He suggested that if Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar is insisting on his presence as a pre-condition for the bipartisan talks, then the responsibility for the failure of the crime talks to take place rests exclusively with her.
The Prime Minister was adamant that he would not allow the Opposition to lay down conditions for the bipartisan crime talks, such as his attendance at these talks or the participation of former commissioner of police Gary Griffith.
He said, given the Opposition’s record, he was not surprised by the position it was taking. “When the Opposition Leader is telling me that unless the condition is met where Gary Griffith is part of a meeting to talk, that should tell you all you need to know,” he said.
He said it was the Police Service Commission which engaged retired Justice Stanley John to investigate allegations of corruption in the administration of Firearm User’s Licences (FULs) and John was so concerned by what he saw that he provided a copy of his report to the chairman of the National Security Council (Prime Minister)- which stated, among other things, that there was a well-oiled criminal enterprise and he recommended a criminal investigation.
“The Government had seen it fit not to renew the contract of Gary Griffith and you (Opposition Leader) coming to tell me now that we are to have crime talks and unless Gary Griffith there, it won’t have crime talks. Need I tell you any more? The same Gary Griffith who when the Government took a chance and gave that soldier an opportunity to run the police service, three years later, Justice John is reporting in the way he has reported. And his presence in the crime talks between the Government and Opposition is a deal breaker? And who’s pushing that? His former colleagues who didn’t give him a vote (when the nomination came to Parliament)?” the Prime Minister said.
The ‘soldier’ failed spectacularly
Saying that Griffith never refers to himself as a “former soldier”, but instead as a “former commissioner of police”, the Prime Minister said: “It was a soldier who we put to lead the Police Service for 36 months and that failed spectacularly.” Saying he was injuncted from telling the country what was in the Firearms Audit, the Prime Minister said: “I have had enough of this foolishness!”
Rowley said there were more people in the Opposition who spend their day worrying about the police than maybe (people) on Duncan Street, “But they out front leading the national conversation, upsetting your psyche and holding out the prospect of something better and laying down conditions. They will lay down no conditions for this Government….We have parliamentary colleagues who have a great day when the criminals carry out their outrages in this country because they see it as being of political value. And that is the long and short of it.”
‘Not about optics’
Responding to questions on why he would not lead the crime talks (as requested by the Opposition Leader), the Prime Minister said:
“This is not about me, it’s about the Government meeting the Opposition. They deal with personalities, we deal with institutions. This is not… for me to promote myself….She wants to promote herself through crime talks,” he said.
“Apparently she (Persad-Bissessar) wants to talk to me. She has my phone number. She knows where I live. And if the Opposition Leader says, ‘I want to come and see you now’, I will tell her, ‘come’. But if we have to talk about crime….don’t tell me that if I am not there, it cannot go forward…When I am not in this country, isn’t somebody in the office of the Prime Minister and the country runs along as smoothly as ever?” he added.
The Prime Minister said this matter was not about “optics”. He said while the Government was interested in the legislative agenda, if there was a meeting, discussions would take place in totality of all the measures that the Opposition wanted to put on the table.
But, he said, the Opposition had taken the position that it is not going to meet with the Government because it did not like who is chairing the talks and who was absent. “What kind of play-play talk is that?,” he asked.