Ke­jan Haynes

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says for­mer Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith will no longer at­tempt to join the crime talks be­tween the gov­ern­ment and op­po­si­tion.

In a re­lease, Mrs. Per­sad Bisses­sar said Grif­fith "did not want to be scape­goat­ed as a rea­son for these talks to be scut­tled."

"Hope­ful­ly, Mr. Grif­fith's non-at­ten­dance will as­suage the fears and in­se­cu­ri­ties of the Prime Min­is­ter, who will now re­con­sid­er his re­fusal to at­tend the pro­posed crime talks. As lead­ers, we can­not take in­tractable stances on these talks while vi­o­lent crim­i­nals ter­ror­ize our beloved cit­i­zens," she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said it was nev­er her in­ten­tion to hinge the talks on Grif­fith's at­ten­dance. She clar­i­fied she had asked for an in­vi­ta­tion to be ex­tend­ed to all will­ing stake­hold­ers to par­tic­i­pate in the an­ti-crime talks.

She still called for the Prime Min­is­ter to:

1. Con­sid­er invit­ing all will­ing stake­hold­ers to the an­ti-crime talks to con­tribute.

2. Broad­en the top­ics to be dis­cussed at the meet­ings be­yond leg­is­la­tion on­ly.

3. In­vite ex­perts and pro­fes­sion­als from var­i­ous sec­tors to ad­vise par­lia­men­tar­i­ans on cre­at­ing a holis­tic ap­proach.

4. Im­ple­ment the nu­mer­ous plans, poli­cies, and pro­grams the UNC has pre­sent­ed.

5. De­sist from us­ing these an­ti-crime talks as po­lit­i­cal pro­pa­gan­da.

6. Lead a cred­i­ble team to rep­re­sent the Gov­ern­ment at these talks.