Trinidad and Tobago: Gary Griffith says govt afraid of him joining politics

Wednesday, 2nd February 2022

Gary Griffith- Former Police Commissioner of Trinidad and Tobago police stated that the PM Keith Rowley government is putting all its resources to overshadow him. He said the government is afraid of him (Griffith) joining politics, "It seems as though there is a blatant fear factor of if I decide to go political that some 250 thousand floating voters would decide to coalesce around me and move further away from the PNM. I say this because in the last five months, the government has spent more time, resources and energy on me than all other governance issues combined," Former Police Commissioner stated that the government is considering him a political threat and ignoring all the problems that Trinidad and Tobago is presently facing. "From investigations to leaks to headlines to rewriting of laws, they have thrown the proverbial kitchen sink at me. But through it all, the majority of the public has not been fooled by their transparent 'Get Gary' campaign. The latest attempt sees another one-two attack, this time by the Ministry of Finance and the one-trick pony, Denyse Renne, and the Express newspapers," he emphasized. Lashing at the government, Griffth stated that the price tag for the refurbishment of 3 fields is a quarter of the cost for a similar project in other parts of the country. He said it is one fifth the price tag for Carnival 2022, and while that is for just four weeks, which most citizens are unlikely to partake in, the three sporting fields will help build the community. He said the grounds are now a revenue earner, as they can be rented to local and national teams, such as the national hockey team. Notably, Gary Griffith was deliberately removed from his position as the Commissioner of police. He claims the government removed his name from the merit list. Full Statement of former Police Commissioner To the Ministry of Finance report, it should be noted that I received some 300 million dollars LESS in funding from the Ministry of Finance than my predecessor Stephen Williams did, which easily debunks any claims of wild spending and getting value for money, since even my harshest critic will admit that I did much more during my tenure than Williams did in his time as head of the TTPS. With that significantly reduced budget, I was able to get things done in 3 years that wasn't done in 3 decades, like GPS tracking and dashboard cameras for vehicles, new uniforms, body cameras, tasers, pepper spray, online reporting, the formation of the Sexual Offences Unit, Special Victims Unit, the Gender-Based Violence Unit and the Operation Command Centre, which was pivotal in shutting down 2020's attempted insurrection; to name a few. The public perception of the TTPS moved from 14% to 44% during my tenure, and when polled, crime moved to 4th most important issue for citizens, at the end of my tenure, from 1st, when I took over the TTPS, with Health, Education and the Economy becoming more critical factors of concern for the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago. But beyond the tangible and intangibles, most importantly, in the second 18 months of my three year contract, there were 200 fewer murders than the previous 18 months, all crimes were reduced by an average of 25% in 2020, and up until I left in 2021, we were on track for less than 350 murders in a year, for the first time in 16 years. In comparison, since I have not been there, we saw the bloodiest month is our country's history, where 77 lives were lost in November, and with an average of almost two murders a day, we are now on track for over 700 murders. Interestingly, the Ministry of Finance's audit report made no mention of the over 100 million dollars I was able to save the TTPS EVERY YEAR, by stopping an overtime racket, nor did it mention the other millions saved when I shut down pay for hire racket as well. It also never mentioned that in every single year of my 3-year contract, this same Ministry of Finance failed to release TTPS's agreed budgetary subventions for the first 6 months of the financial year, and hundreds of vendors can attest to how this negatively affected them.

Was this deliberate?
Was it designed for me to fail?

Given what I've seen the past year of attacks, these must be legitimate questions. On the issue of salaries paid to contracted staff, not only were this team of experts able to help implement the changes listed above, and reap the rewards of their success, they did so with remuneration packages which were in line with other specialist contracted personnel in other ministries, and way less than in the TTPS prior to my arrival, where, for example one contract was for over 800 thousand dollars, and where my eventual head of communications ended up receiving a salary which was some 50% less than his predecessor. But as I said earlier, this doesn't surprise me since it appears the present government is prepared to do anything to attack me and besmirch my name, such is their desperation. With a wicked sense of irony or perhaps hypocrisy however, the Ministry of Finance speaks about value for money, when a social media blogger who 'happens' to get leaked reports, and who always seem to support the government's position, is paid 20 thousand a month from NLCB, which falls under the Ministry of Finance.

Is this value for money?
If it's not, should we now expect an investigation and or audits?

While we ponder those questions, let me remind those quick to judge the 51 million dollars spend mentioned in the article, that it is way less than rental fees being paid by the government for properties, the 35 million earmarked for carnival 2022, to build a handful of 8X8 booths, is two thirds the cost, and the 17 million dollars spent to refurbish the Prime Minister's Tobago residence, is exactly one-third of the 51 million; all of which I am sure we can all 'agree' is not 'wild spending', or terrible 'value for money.