Look at the bigger picture

Speaking with Newsday on Thursday, the former minister of National Security said both leaders needed to look past politics and look at the bigger picture.

Griffith said: “The Opposition Leader needs to support legislation to make kidnapping a non bailable offence as well as being arrested as a gang member and the possession of illegal firearms.” He said the Prime Minister needed to look at the 25 to 83 per cent drop in serious crimes between 2009 and 2014.

“In the year 2009, there were 22,000 serious crimes. In the year 2014, there were 11,000 serious crimes. That means in 2014, in every hour of every day of every month, one less person was killed, robbed, abused or had their car stolen,” Griffith said.

“The Prime Minister needs to understand that two years ago, there was less fear and people felt safer. Political blinkers need to be taken off though some lieutenants see politics more than patriotism,” he added. Griffith also said that the incorporation of the National Operations Centre (NOC) into the Strategic Services Agency (SSA) was a bad move on the part of Minister of National Security Edmund Dillon.

“What we need is a single National Operations Centre,” he said. “There is no doubt that when the NOC was in action, people felt safer.” He also said the NOC fulfilled the role of a centralised coordinated agency which was a major recommendation of the 2014 Commission of Enquiry into the attempted coup. He added that the NOC was a pivotal crime-fighting body and was important for communication between police agencies and the state as well as between the people and the state.

Commenting on the 27th anniversary of the July 1990 attempted coup d’état, Griffith believed history would not repeat itself. Griffith said the country possessed the capabilities to prevent the re occurrence of such an event, as long as the government heeded the recommendations of the Commission of Enquiry.

He added the country had learned from its mistakes and the lack of intelligence gathering and breakdown in communication with police services had been corrected.

“We have good police officers, contrary to what the wider population thinks,” Griffith said.

“Also, thanks to the foresight of the then prime minister, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, that “Pandora’s box” has been opened and we are aware of our shortcomings back then.” “If the government adheres to the recommendations of the Commission of Enquiry, I am fully confident that a situation like that will not happen again,” he added.

Griffith said there was no need to reinvent the wheel and Dillon was not heeding the recommendations of the Commission of Enquiry.

He added that, because of that, we were actually opening a window that could be closed.

“We also have no counter terrorist unit,” Griffith said. “Look at Belgium, the United States, England, those countries. They have an elite body of armed counter terrorist forces to deal with terrorism.

The government needs to reinstate the National Operations Centre, establish a counter terrorist unit and a national security alert state. All of these were the biggest recommendations that came out of the Commission of Enquiry.” He also said that an increase in national security apparatus was vital at this stage.