The Op­po­si­tion has less than a week to re­spond to a let­ter from the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al to name its four par­tic­i­pants in pro­posed an­ti-crime talks with the Gov­ern­ment.

The let­ter was sent to Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day by At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour, who was ap­point­ed chair­man of the talks.

The let­ter was al­so copied to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley. The let­ters was ti­tled “Bi­par­ti­san safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty dis­cus­sions - re­quest for the com­po­si­tion of the op­po­si­tion’s team”.

The Gov­ern­ment’s team will in­clude Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds, Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries Stu­art Young, Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Mar­vin Gon­za­les and Min­is­ter of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts Ran­dall Mitchell.

Ar­mour, in re­quest­ing a re­sponse, asked that the names be pro­vid­ed by No­vem­ber 9.

“I write fur­ther to cor­re­spon­dence dat­ed 12th Oc­to­ber, 2023, from the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter to you, which out­lined the com­po­si­tion of the Gov­ern­ment’s Par­lia­men­tary Team for the sub­ject dis­cus­sions,” the let­ter said.

“In this re­gard, as the ap­point­ed chair­man of the sub­ject dis­cus­sions, I ask that you please pro­vide the names of your Par­lia­men­tary nom­i­nees. I take the op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­mind you of the Gov­ern­ment’s stead­fast com­mit­ment to the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of our na­tion’s cit­i­zens, un­der­scor­ing the im­por­tance of con­struc­tive bi­par­ti­san di­a­logue. I shall be oblig­ed to ob­tain your re­sponse on or be­fore 9th No­vem­ber, 2023,” it end­ed.

‘UNC very com­mit­ted’

to crime talks

How­ev­er, at a me­dia con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, hours be­fore the let­ter was sent, two se­nior mem­bers of the Op­po­si­tion skirt­ed around ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia on whether they would par­tic­i­pate in the talks if the Prime Min­is­ter was ab­sent.

Shad­ow lo­cal gov­ern­ment min­is­ter and St Au­gus­tine MP Khadi­jah Ameen and Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor David Nakhid both shift­ed the blame to Row­ley.

“The UNC is very com­mit­ted to re­duc­ing crime and crim­i­nal­i­ty in Trinidad and To­ba­go and mak­ing the coun­try safe again. Dr Row­ley’s post­pone­ment and de­lay in keep­ing this meet­ing with the op­po­si­tion in an ex­pe­di­tious man­ner is a demon­stra­tion of how se­ri­ous­ly he takes crime and vi­o­lence,” Ameen said.

Asked a sec­ond time if they would take part, she said, “Some­times I won­der if Kei­th Row­ley be­ing there will re­al­ly make a dif­fer­ence. I have not seen the po­lit­i­cal will from him to make it hap­pen. But the thing is the UNC is the one, we have been call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to meet with us. We have sent sug­ges­tions to them in the past. We have pre­sent­ed and pub­li­cised our sug­ges­tions. So we re­main com­mit­ted.”

Nakhid said he be­lieves as head of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, Row­ley should be present.

“If he can­not dear to at­tend a meet­ing, what does that tell you? Well, it tells us a lot. It shows us that Kei­th Christo­pher Row­ley is on­ly con­cerned about mak­ing sure that the PNM re­mains in pow­er and the squan­der­ma­nia that we see, the wastage, the cor­rup­tion that we see from them con­tin­ue.

“He has no in­ter­est at all, he keeps shift­ing the goal­post every time he speaks on the mat­ter. Well, we are right there. Our po­lit­i­cal leader is com­mit­ted to mak­ing sure that our cit­i­zens re­main safe and she will con­tin­ue to en­gage the Gov­ern­ment de­spite what­ev­er way they try to run and hide,” he said.

On Oc­to­ber 14, two days af­ter Dr Row­ley’s email to Per­sad-Bisses­sar nam­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s four-mem­ber team and chair­man, she is­sued a re­sponse in which she sought fur­ther in­for­ma­tion on sev­er­al points. She asked that the Prime Min­is­ter state if he would at­tend the meet­ing, and chal­lenged him to say if it was now a team of five Gov­ern­ment and four Op­po­si­tion mem­bers, since the chair is a mem­ber of the rul­ing ad­min­is­tra­tion. Fur­ther­more, she asked why he in­sist­ed that strict­ly par­lia­men­tar­i­ans be part of the talks and not op­po­si­tion mem­bers as pre­vi­ous­ly stat­ed by him. Per­sad-Bisses­sar went on to raise ques­tions on whether oth­er stake­hold­ers would be present, as she chal­lenged Row­ley to high­light leg­isla­tive mat­ters as the sub­ject mat­ter in his let­ter as op­posed to new crime-fight­ing pro­pos­als.