National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds took aim at former police commissioner Gary Griffith's issuance of Firearms Users Licenses (FULs) and State of Emergency (SoE) passes during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021.
Referring to past remarks where Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley referred to Griffith's appointment as top cop as a "disappointment," Hinds went further to say he considered Griffith's removal as commissioner an achievement.
Griffith, who served as police commissioner from 2018 to 2021, is now head of the National Transformation Alliance (NTA), which has partnered with the United National Congress.
During a fiery address at the PNM's public meeting in the Croisee, San Juan, last night, Hinds reported that during the current Government's SoE in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Griffith, who was still commissioner, issued 22,000 passes.
He questioned the reasoning for the issuance of such a large number of passes, noting that at least one person who received a pass was the owner of a sporting goods store who was before the court on matters of fraud.
"So I still want to know on what basis does a sports store owner need a State of Emergency pass?"
Hinds also noted that he later learned that the SoE passes issued were being sold for $5,000 each in southern Trinidad.
Hinds also focused his attention on an affidavit signed and filed by current Police Commissioner Erla Harewood-Christopher, which contained information regarding alleged impropriety in the issuance of FULs.
He said during Griffith's tenure, over 8,000 FULs were granted, which he claimed to be more than "all police commissioners add up together since independence."
He said Griffith allowed the importation of high calibre 7.62 ammunition which was banned by the United Nations and which could cause severe damage.
"These were allowed to be imported by the millions. No wonder why when the police go on a murder scene now, it is no longer uncommon, it has now become a feature in crime scenes to find 94, 100 7.62 ammunition, that bussing through ten people and killing the 11th.
"Recklessness, misjudgement, contrary to government policy and so the story went," he said.
Hinds was also critical of Griffith's suggestion to Government to classify gangs as terrorist groups given the brutality of their attacks, noting that terrorism and criminality were incompatible.
"In the first place, terrorism has to do with something political or philosophical, where you use violence to achieve a political end," he said.
"You can't do that with those ordinary criminals so, not because they using automatic weapons and we have a good idea of how they get them. So we reject that."