By Prior Beharry
THE $45 million the government sent to the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS) to go after its political opponents was unethical but not illegal.
This according to former police commissioner Gary Griffith in a telephone interview with AZP News on Thursday.
He has claimed that while he was commissioner of police, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley had told him to hire foreign attorneys with money that was specifically sent to the TTPS.
Griffith, who now leads the National Transformation Alliance (NTA), was speaking after political leader of the Progressive Empowerment Party (PEP) Phillip Edward Alexander wrote to the Director of Public Prosecutions on Wednesday asking whether Dr Rowley should be charged for misbehaviour in public office regarding the allegation of Griffith.
The former top cop told AZP News, “He (Alexander) is free to do whatever he wants, that’s what he does anyway. I am fully aware of the law and my interpretation of the law is that the government has full authority to transfer funds to the police service because without the government doing that the police service would be crippled.
“So the government will sometimes transfer over $1 billion for goods and services and that involves paying electricity, repairing vehicles, maintaining buildings and also paying legal fees in matters where the police have to (be) involved in due diligence and investigations and also represent the police in court matters.”
Griffith said as commissioner he had requested certain funds and $300 million was reduced from the annual budget during Covid.
He said, “I don’t know if it was incompetency, sabotage or what.
“In some cases the simplest things I was asking for such as to get an engineer to investigate the AV Drilling investigation and I was refused.
“However, they started to inject $45 million and the directive was these funds must solely be used towards acquiring foreign attorneys in the investigations pertaining to political opponents.”
Griffith added, “That is unethical. It is not criminal. And that is my interpretation because the government can be found guilty in the court of public opinion. But there was nothing illegal that the government did.”
He said the police commissioner was not supposed to send out a press release every time the government does something unethical.
Griffith said, “So the comments made by this person who calls himself a political leader, saying that commissioner of police should make a public statement.
“A commissioner of police is not supposed to be doing a media release every time a government does something unethical.
“If that is the case, a commissioner of police will be making a press release every day. That was not my role and function.
“As a commissioner, I was not getting into the politics. If the government was doing something unethical, impractical, that was not my business, it was unfortunate and that was for the politicians to deal with.”
He said there was no criminal matter that took place by the government that he could have acted on.
Griffith added, “Well if other people see differently well then write to the DPP.”
Questioned on what vote under the TTPS the $45 million was sent to, he replied, “It was just deposited straight into our account for an immediate transfer to the attorneys.
Asked if that was usual, he said, “No it was not. It was very irregular, impractical, improper, immoral and not all ethical, but all of those things are not criminal offences.”
He added, “And Phillip Alexander, he seems to be a bush lawyer, he doesn’t understand that so he is making a lot of hullabaloo but he is missing the point. My concern, which I could only make after I left the office of commissioner of police.
“I could not be out there doing media conferences to state that every time the government does something immoral or impractical and that is why Phillip Alexander has never held any position of authority because of that way of thinking that a commissioner of police is supposed to do a press conference to tell the country that what the government is doing is unethical.
“That is not the role of a commissioner of police.”
Griffith said if there were allegations of law-breaking as with several governing ministers he would have done investigations, as he did.
