Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) po­lit­i­cal leader Gary Grif­fith says the doors of his par­ty are open to Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress dis­si­dents Rush­ton Paray, Dr Rai Rag­bir, Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne, Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly and Rod­ney Charles.

Grif­fith made the state­ment as the NTA yes­ter­day re­vealed three more can­di­dates for the up­com­ing Gen­er­al Elec­tion on April 28.

His call came less than 24 hours af­ter Paray was snubbed by the UNC to re­turn as its can­di­date for the Ma­yaro con­stituen­cy. In­stead, the Op­po­si­tion an­nounced that Nicholas Mor­ris was its prospec­tive can­di­date for the area dur­ing a meet­ing in San­gre Grande on Sat­ur­day night.

Dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, Grif­fith, the for­mer Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty un­der the UNC, said, “Our doors are open. We are wel­com­ing each and every­one. The doors are open, and the seats are there for you to be part and par­cel of the NTA.”

Grif­fith al­so slammed the UNC un­der Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s lead­er­ship, say­ing it has moved from a democ­ra­cy to hypocrisy.

He said, “Democ­ra­cy is one when you as a po­lit­i­cal par­ty - it is your right to be able to par­tic­i­pate in an in­de­pen­dent, de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process to be in a na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive. Any­time some­body is up­set be­cause you have ex­er­cised your de­mo­c­ra­t­ic right to be in a na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive and you get up­set about it and you re­move that per­son as a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, it shows that your po­lit­i­cal par­ty is no longer a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic one.”

The for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er al­so used the op­por­tu­ni­ty to chal­lenge Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young and the Op­po­si­tion Leader to a de­bate.

Mean­while, Grif­fith re­vealed that me­dia per­son­al­i­ty and co­me­di­an Er­rol Fa­bi­en will con­test the con­stituen­cy of Point Fortin, while Richard Thomas will come up against Young as he vies for the Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West con­stituen­cy. Alvin Cud­joe will con­test the La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro seat for the par­ty.

Grif­fith al­so took aim at both the PNM and the UNC for both par­ties’ fail­ure to im­ple­ment cam­paign fi­nance re­form, say­ing the lack of leg­is­la­tion helps the two ma­jor par­ties in the coun­try. He al­so slammed the Coun­cil for Re­spon­si­ble Po­lit­i­cal Be­hav­iour for be­ing mum on the is­sue.

Grif­fith said, “You don’t need to go to Las Ve­gas. As a busi­ness­man or as a con­trac­tor, why go to Las Ve­gas when you have to se­lect be­tween black and white and there is a 50-50 chance that you can dou­ble your mon­ey or lose, when all you need to do is come to T&T pol­i­tics, come to a gen­er­al elec­tion, put 10 mil­lion dol­lars on the PNM, put $10 mil­lion dol­lars on the UNC and in your first month, you are go­ing to get a $50 mil­lion dol­lar con­tract to dou­ble what you put in your first in­vest­ment and you have that for the next four years and 11 months. If that is not cor­rup­tion, then what is?”

He al­so urged mem­bers of the pub­lic not to de­face pub­lic and pri­vate prop­er­ty with po­lit­i­cal mes­sages dur­ing the cam­paign. He called on the po­lice to ar­rest such in­di­vid­u­als, as it is a crime. Grif­fith al­so took is­sue with the UNC’s use of blue in its po­lit­i­cal mes­sag­ing, say­ing this blurs the line with his par­ty and there is a rea­son why po­lit­i­cal par­ties use dif­fer­ent colours to dis­tin­guish them­selves.

Con­tact­ed on Grif­fith’s over­ture yes­ter­day, for­mer Ch­agua­nas West MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly said, “I wish to clar­i­fy that since my de­par­ture as a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, I have al­so re­signed as a life­time mem­ber of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress. As such, I am not a ‘UNC dis­si­dent’ - just an or­di­nary cit­i­zen.” 

Ram­bal­ly not­ed that he was now spend­ing time with his fam­i­ly and had not made any de­ci­sions re­gard­ing his fu­ture (when it comes to pol­i­tics).  

“I wish cap­tain Gary Grif­fith and the NTA all the best in their en­deav­ours.” Guardian Me­dia al­so reached out to the out­go­ing MP for Tabaquite Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne but she re­served her com­ment for an­oth­er time. 

Giv­ing an up­date on whether she had been cho­sen to run for Tabaquite again for the UNC, Haynes-Al­leyne said the par­ty had not com­mu­ni­cat­ed with her on the mat­ter.