Gail Alexan­der

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress MPs Gan­ga Singh and Dr Fuad Khan weren’t pleased they had to toe UNC’s par­ty line and ab­stain from vot­ing for Gary Grif­fith’s ap­point­ment to the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er post on Mon­day and Bhoe Tewarie was al­so un­com­fort­able with ab­stain­ing.

In fact, just be­fore Mon­day’s Par­lia­men­tary vote on the is­sue, Khan con­sid­ered break­ing par­ty ranks and Tewarie sent a note to UNC’s whip on his dis­com­fort.

“....We made an er­ror in not sup­port­ing Gary Grif­fith,” Singh crowned off com­ments yes­ter­day.

In Mon­day’s de­bate, Grif­fith was ap­proved for the post by 19 ma­jor­i­ty Gov­ern­ment votes. Thir­teen Op­po­si­tion MPs ab­stained. Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley re­moved the “whip” from his team, al­low­ing them a con­science vote.

But this didn’t ap­ply on the Op­po­si­tion side, which cau­cused pri­or to the de­bate and agreed to ab­stain.

When votes were re­quest­ed from UNC MPs, Khan’s face showed dis­tinct dis­plea­sure. He had to be asked three times what his po­si­tion was be­fore he mum­bled, “Ab­stain.”

Af­ter the ses­sion, Khan was hugged by Gov­ern­ment’s (Low­er) House leader Camille Robin­son-Reg­is, whom he said com­mis­er­at­ed with his po­si­tion.

Khan ad­mit­ted yes­ter­day he was torn be­tween his friend­ship with Grif­fith and the need to toe the UNC’s line.

“I was an­gry be­cause Gary’s a friend of mine, an ex­cel­lent Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter and proven ca­pa­bil­i­ty in deal­ing with crim­i­nal el­e­ments.

“Ab­sten­tion cre­at­ed noth­ing but it was par­ty line I had to fol­low, though just be­fore the vote I se­ri­ous­ly con­sid­ered break­ing ranks to sup­port Grif­fith, as the Prime Min­is­ter made a good de­fence of Gary for the post. Gary’s al­ways been my choice. But no one can fault me for fol­low­ing the par­ty line ahead of my per­son­al feel­ings.”

Khan felt a po­lit­i­cal agen­da was in­volved in the choice since the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment was “still hurt­ing” from its Barataria by-elec­tion loss.

“This was a re­ac­tion to show they could put a pre­vi­ous UNC per­son in the post and see what hap­pens. Gary’s smart enough to rise above it. But he’ll have a lot of po­lit­i­cal and po­lice en­e­mies who don’t want him there,” Khan said.

“The po­lice should, how­ev­er, give him a chance. We need to get a han­dle on crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty de­stroy­ing T&T.”

Singh added: “We erred in not sup­port­ing Grif­fith, con­sid­er­ing he was a high-achiev­ing PP Cab­i­net col­league and the ‘fruit’ of a (Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion) process we said wasn’t flawed. Con­sis­ten­cy re­quired us to vote and sup­port the choice.

“How­ev­er, our cau­cus de­ci­sion was fol­lowed on the ba­sis of col­lec­tive re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. But it’s clear our Op­po­si­tion whip (David Lee) didn’t have the pow­er to do as the Prime Min­is­ter did with his team and al­low our MPs a con­science vote. In the Op­po­si­tion Leader’s ab­sence, our Chief Whip was emas­cu­lat­ed and couldn’t rise to the Prime Min­is­ter’s chal­lenge to re­move our whip as he did for his team.

“If we had a con­science vote, I’d have vot­ed for Grif­fith. I feel the whip should have been re­moved for the UNC. I hope in leg­is­la­tion ahead there’ll be more flex­i­bil­i­ty to call for re­moval of our whip. As for Grif­fith, the role of Com­mis­sion­er is to be in­de­pen­dent and im­par­tial—there­fore the law is his mas­ter. Not any man.”

Tewarie al­so ad­mit­ted he sent a note to the whip just be­fore the vote in­di­cat­ing I was un­com­fort­able with the po­si­tion but fol­lowed our par­ty line.

“On prin­ci­ple, our ab­sten­tion can be de­fend­ed be­cause PNM trans­gressed with their prin­ci­ple of the PSC’s process be­ing flawed. But giv­en T&T’s crime sit­u­a­tion and the need for a per­ma­nent du­ly-ap­point­ed Com­mis­sion­er, I’d have been more com­fort­able sup­port­ing vote for a Com­mis­sion­er,” Tewarie said.

“I wish the new Com­mis­sion­er well and hope he suc­ceeds in fight­ing crime. I hope he’ll be as in­de­pen­dent in thought and spir­it as he’s al­ways been— but ju­di­cious in a post that has a lot of pow­er.”

But UNC Whip Lee yes­ter­day main­tained the ab­sten­tion was a col­lec­tive de­ci­sion based on the PNM say­ing the process was flawed and in the event le­gal is­sues arise from peo­ple who may chal­lenge Grif­fith’s ap­point­ment.