According to Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley, the opposition has never taken crime prevention seriously because they see crime as a “political bonanza” for themselves.
“They do not want any improvement in the crime situation,” Rowley stated during a press conference held at the Diplomatic Centre in St Ann’s yesterday. If Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar is requiring his attendance in order for the bipartisan negotiations to proceed, then it is her fault alone that the crime talks have failed to proceed.
- Advertisement -
The PM was determined that he would not allow the Opposition to impose terms on the bipartisan crime discussions, including requiring him to be there or for former police commissioner Gary Griffith to participate.
He stated that he was not shocked by the opposition’s stance because of its track record. “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 noted.
The Prime Minister received a copy of Justice Stanley John’s report from the Police Service Commission, he said, because the former judge was so alarmed by what he saw that he sent it to the chairman of the National Security Council. The report included recommendations for a criminal investigation and mentioned, among other things, that there was a well-run criminal enterprise.
The Prime Minister stated, “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 stated that Griffith always refers to himself as a “former commissioner of police” rather than a “former soldier.” He added. “It was a soldier who we put to lead the Police Service for 36 months and that failed spectacularly.” Rowley shared that he was prohibited from disclosing to the public the contents of the Firearms Audit: “I have had enough of this foolishness!”
More Opposition members, according to Rowley, worry about the police throughout the day than maybe any residents of 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 political.”
When asked why he would not chair the crime discussions (as asked by the leader of the opposition), the prime minister stated:
“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.
He continued, “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?”
According to the prime minister, “optics” was not at issue here. Although the government was interested in the legislative agenda, he added that if a meeting was held, all of the initiatives that the opposition wished to propose would be discussed.
However, he added, the Opposition had decided not to meet with the government because it did not agree with the people presiding over the discussions and those who were not there. He questioned, “What kind of play-play talk is that?”
