Ke­jan Haynes

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has out­right re­ject­ed a pro­pos­al by for­mer Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith to put pol­i­tics aside and let him help in the fight against crime.

In Par­lia­ment to­day Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley, in re­spond­ing to a ques­tion from MP for Na­pari­ma Rod­ney Charles, said clear­ly, as chair­man of the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty coun­cil, "I have very good rea­son not to meet with Gary Grif­fith un­der any cir­cum­stances."

He con­tin­ued, in­ter­rupt­ing a fol­low-up ques­tion from Charles, "In­so­far as meet­ing with the op­po­si­tion is con­cerned, I meet with them all the time in this cham­ber in front of you Madam Speak­er, and they have ob­struct­ed every sin­gle at­tempt we had to fight crime in this coun­try."

He said he will meet and work with the op­po­si­tion if they "change course" and help the gov­ern­ment.

Charles asked the Prime Min­is­ter if there would be ben­e­fits to meet­ing with peo­ple who "may know more" than him.

Dr Row­ley replied, "You might be sur­prised, but we do that all the time."

Guardian Me­dia polled the pub­lic across our so­cial me­dia plat­forms, ask­ing If the gov­ern­ment should ac­cept Grif­fith's of­fer, 85% said yes.