By Sue-Ann Wayow
FORMER Commissioner of Police Gary Griffith has hit back at Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley for comments he made at a political meeting on Tuesday night.
Dr Rowley said that allowing Griffith to be police commissioner was “biggest mistake he ever made.”
However, Griffith said instead, the nation’s biggest mistake was electing Dr Rowley as prime minister.
In a video circulating on social media on Wednesday, Griffith said, “No, Keith Rowley, the biggest mistake in Trinidad and Tobago’s 60 years (of Independence) was selecting you as Prime Minister of Trinidad & Tobago and we will ensure that is changed very soon.”
Griffith is now the interim leader and founder of the political party the National Transformation Alliance (NTA).
On Tuesday night at a public People’s National Movement (PNM) meeting in Belmont, Dr Rowley made reference to an audit of the firearms unit in the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTTPS) saying it made “very very troublesome reading.”
Griffith said Dr Rowley appointed him with the hope that he would target the PNM’s political opponents.
Speaking of his accomplishments during his three-year term that ended last year August, Griffith said, “No, Keith Rowley. Your mistake is that you wanted and you hoped that Gary Griffith would be a puppet and take directions from a government. I had no intention to do so.
“So you have disregarded the crime statistics, you have disregarded the public trust and confidence in the police, you have disregarded what the country wants and who the country wanted as a commissioner of police.”
He described the justification of the firearms issue as “comical.”
Griffith said, “On three occasions, you (Rowley) have specifically hand-picked persons, paid them big money and then tried to get them to write reports that you may like. The country did not buy it, Keith Rowley. You played your hand and lost.”
He also said that 100 per cent of the murders in the past three years were committed with illegal guns.
“I, Gary Griffith ensured, yes, that legal firearms must be provided to law-abiding citizens to protect them from criminal elements. You, Keith Rowley, and your government have spent more time targeting law-abiding citizens getting legal firearms than criminal elements who have illegal firearms,” the former commissioner stated.
