I would make decisions based on what is right and not what is popular.
Within the last few weeks, I have made several controversial decisions and comments in my official capacity, that have caused nationwide debate as to whether it should have been done or not.
Whereas it is the right of everyone to have the freedom of choice or expression of any matter, it has indeed demonstrated the lack of understanding of the laws of the land by a few, as some are boxed into making views based on emotion and not based on logic, international best practice or fundamental policies of law enforcement.
Just a few of these decisions, which have caused some to comment in an adverse manner, have in fact raised eyebrows internationally, as those who understand law enforcement, are shocked that any logical thinking citizen would have concerns on making decisions based on what would have been done in the exact same manner in those countries, as is mandatory due to their experience and expertise in understanding the value of making such decisions, and adhering to Standard Operations Procedure.
Just a few of these include:
• The decision to release persons held against their will:
The audacity of me, being so bold, to release 69 persons who were reported as being imprisoned against their will, tortured, beaten, left naked, kidnapped, assaulted and had funds taken away from them.
How dare I as Commissioner of Police, be so out of place to expose this and release these persons from captivity?
• The decision to acquire Armoured vehicles to protect the lives of Police Officers:
In Parliament recently, a concern was raised by a politician as to the audacity of a Leader in the Police being so foolish to want to acquire vehicles to ensure that my Officers can be protected from hostile gunfire when they patrol.
So what if almost every elite law enforcement unit in the world has similar vehicles to ensure that the lives of Police Officers are protected, but how dare I do the same to try to protect the lives of TT Police Officers whilst performing their duty?

How dare I acquire an Armoured vehicle to assist the State to ensure that we are prepared to act if there is ever a repeat of 1990, or to extract a hostage if held captive, or to get personnel to a site to defuse a bomb, by wanting to have them secured in a vehicle that could save their lives?
• Establishment of a Police Social Media Monitoring unit:

So what if this is done worldwide - why should a unit be established that would monitor what everyone else is viewing on social media, even though this Unit would assist in reducing child pornography, human trafficking, child prostitution, recruitment of terrorists and recruiting of gangs, and getting leads to solve or stop a murder, because apparently for some, it is the right of the criminal to be protected and have a degree of privacy, so how dare I try to invade that privilege, even if it could save lives .
• Revealing facts in a charge report to the public, that is accessible to the media:

A well-known figure is charged under the Sedition Act, and the media only uses the extracts of what was conveniently fed to them, instead of actually acquiring the charge report. To clarify the misconception, I reveal the actual charge report, showing much more of what was in the charge report.
The Defence Attorney then sends a release, voicing his concern, that I revealed the truth and the facts to the public, so a media house puts a headline saying ' Gary's Mischief ', because how dare I reveal the truth to the public, because revealing the truth, revealing facts to the public is seen as mischief.
Breach of Regulations by allowing a civilian into an armed conflict, hence endangering his life and possibly that of other Officers:

The latest horror is me being so bold to launch an investigation whereby Police Officers, engaged in a hostage crisis, allegedly being confronted by someone with a firearm, but allowing a civilian to become vulnerable and exposed in a firefight, and being allowed into a possible kill zone, which could have also affected the said officers in the performance of their duties.
The excuse to justify such approval being that it is the family member of someone makes it even more important for anyone who has a firearm, not to be engaged in such an armed conflict, especially when it is under the control of the TTPS as that said time.

The same critics who are concerned about me being so bold to deal with a breach of operational law enforcement policy by allowing a civilian into a hostile environment would be the first to be expressing concerns, had that same citizen been killed in the crossfire.

Whilst the Officers can be commended for their actions in extracting the hostage unharmed, I ask which country, Police Department or Service in the world, would find it appropriate for a relative of someone being held hostage, to be allowed to draw a firearm and accompany Police Officers into a hostage crisis?
Social Media is indeed a double-edged sword as it opens the door for comment on every matter, much of the time without proper research and many times facts, causing at times more harm than good.
For too long, this country has seen many decisions made based on persons in authority going in a certain direction to win support and popularity.
As a Leader and in this case, as Commissioner of Police, I have no intention to ever make any decision or comment, based on doing what the majority feels, but doing what is required based on whether it is right or wrong, or whether it is legal or illegal.
I have no intention to change that stance
Gary Griffith Junior,
Commissioner of Police.
Source: Breaking News TT October 19, 2019

While au­thor­i­ties have cor­doned off the Pi­paro Mud Vol­cano fol­low­ing an in­crease in ac­tiv­i­ty, one fam­i­ly may have to evac­u­ate as earth move­ment has start­ed to dam­age their home.
Large fis­sures from the vol­cano con­tin­ued to widen from Sat­ur­day night in­to yes­ter­day, with fresh mounds of mud pil­ing up near the mouth.
As scores of cu­ri­ous vis­i­tors and res­i­dents gath­ered, the machi­nat­ed sound could be heard and gas was re­leased every few min­utes.
Po­lice of­fi­cers were do­ing pa­trols, in case there was a need to ini­ti­ate an emer­gency ex­er­cise.
For Fedell Solomon, whose home is sit­u­at­ed close to the vol­cano, the mem­o­ries of the 1997 erup­tion that al­most flat­tened their com­mu­ni­ty rushed to mind.
Solomon was on­ly nine years old back then, but when the equip­ment room be­gan sep­a­rat­ing from the rest of his fam­i­ly home, they im­me­di­ate­ly be­gan pack­ing up im­por­tant doc­u­ments and clothes and putting it in their ve­hi­cle in case they need­ed to evac­u­ate.
“We were get­ting ready for bed and just heard some­thing like a hard gun­shot. We thought it was some­one try­ing to come in­to the prop­er­ty. We tried to fig­ure out what it was. We didn’t see any move­ments un­til the sec­ond sim­i­lar noise and then a piece of con­crete lift­ed off.
It was then the house start­ed mov­ing. All we could have done was to ob­serve it mov­ing. We tried to move what­ev­er we could safe­ly,” Solomon said.
In 1997 erup­tion, the house which has been there for the past 30 years, al­so sus­tained dam­age. He said it is fright­en­ing liv­ing close to the vol­cano and his fam­i­ly is hop­ing for the best. He said they are con­tem­plat­ing to evac­u­ate their home if the sit­u­a­tion wors­ens.
Se­nior geo­sci­en­tist Xavier Moo­nan ad­vised cit­i­zens not to ven­ture near the Pi­paro mud vol­cano since drone sur­veys in­di­cat­ed it was about to blow.
Moo­nan and his team toured the vol­cano yes­ter­day morn­ing, hours af­ter res­i­dents re­port­ed see­ing fis­sures and cracks around the area.
In an in­ter­view, Moo­nan said: “We just drone sur­veyed the mud vol­cano. We should ad­vise peo­ple to not ven­ture on­to it at least. It looks like it may blow very soon. We are see­ing up to two feet of mo­tion on some frac­tures.”
Princes Town MP Bar­ry Padarath, who viewed the ac­tiv­i­ty at the vol­cano be­lieves that res­i­dents should not take any chances and those liv­ing close­ly should evac­u­ate.
Re­call­ing that the 1997 erup­tion came like a “thief in the night” he said the new de­vel­op­ment has caused pan­ic in the com­mu­ni­ty and was wor­ried that none of the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties had shown up to as­sess the con­di­tions. Source: Guadian, Sept. 24, 2019

Pres­i­dent Gen­er­al of the Oil­field Work­ers’ Trade Union An­cel Ro­get has giv­en the as­sur­ance that their ac­qui­si­tion of the for­mer Petrotrin re­fin­ery will ben­e­fit every sin­gle cit­i­zen in T&T.
Re­ceiv­ing the news of their suc­cess dur­ing a walk­a­bout in Point Fortin in sup­port of two Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice (MSJ) lo­cal gov­ern­ment can­di­dates yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, Ro­get and union mem­bers broke out in cel­e­bra­tion, chant­i­ng to union songs. Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert an­nounced in Par­lia­ment that OW­TU-owned Pa­trot­ic En­er­gies and Tech­nolo­gies Ser­vices Ltd, won the bid for the re­fin­ery with an of­fer of US$700 mil­lion. Some 70 bids were ini­tial­ly made for the re­fin­ery’s ac­qui­si­tion.  It is the first time in the his­to­ry of T&T that a union has tak­en con­trol of a state en­ter­prise, one that was once con­sid­ered a ma­jor rev­enue earn­er. Speak­ing with the me­dia at New­lands, Ma­haica, short­ly af­ter re­ceiv­ing the news, Ro­get said, “While every­body was prepar­ing for the cel­e­bra­tion of Christ­mas last year, on De­cem­ber 17 the OW­TU would have been busy with the process of in­cor­po­rat­ing a com­pa­ny for the ac­qui­si­tion of the re­fin­ery and that com­pa­ny is the Pa­tri­ot­ic En­er­gy and Tech­nolo­gies Ser­vices Ltd.”
He said this was some­thing the union and the peo­ple de­served. “I al­so want to say that the ac­qui­si­tion of the re­fin­ery for the OW­TU on our part is not just for the Petrotrin work­ers, it’s for the Petrotrin work­ers that is a fact. It is not just for the OW­TU mem­bers, it is for the OW­TU mem­bers that is al­so a fact, but it is for and be­half all of the peo­ple of T&T. We did this on the fo­cus of the coun­try, know­ing full well that if that re­fin­ery had got­ten in­to any oth­er hands it would not have ben­e­fit­ed T&T. We would have strug­gled, we would have prayed, we would have fast­ed and at the end of the day the Almighty God would have show­ered bless­ings on us not just us but on the peo­ple of T&T,” he said.
He added: “The peo­ple T&T cer­tain­ly de­serve a lot more and we are go­ing to en­sure that our ac­qui­si­tion of those as­sets do not go in vain. It will go for every sin­gle cit­i­zen that walks this land.”
Thank­ing all well wish­ers and mem­bers who sup­port­ed the union in every step of the jour­ney, he said, “The ac­qui­si­tion of those as­sets is not a gift from the Gov­ern­ment. We did not get any gratis or no­body did us any favour. We de­serve it, the peo­ple de­serve it.”
Ro­get sug­gest­ed that not all the work­ers who were fired will be re­hired. “All of the work­ers who were in sup­port of the union for the ac­qui­si­tion of those as­sets, those work­ers will not be dis­ap­point­ed,” he said.
Ro­get said their first or­der of busi­ness will be a na­tion­al prayer ser­vice to give thanks to God. The com­pa­ny, he said, will al­so have to re­ceive its for­mal doc­u­ment from the Gov­ern­ment stat­ing that they had ac­quired the re­fin­ery.
“Once that oc­curs we will be able to take it from there,” he said.
In due time, he said the board mem­bers of Pa­tri­ot­ic En­er­gy and Tech­nolo­gies Ser­vices Ltd will be dis­closed.
Last year Ro­get, in an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, in­di­cat­ed that a for­eign in­vestor was in­ter­est­ed in part­ner­ing with OW­TU in a joint ven­ture lease of the re­fin­ery.
The Gov­ern­ment claimed the state oil com­pa­ny was los­ing mon­ey and Petrotrin was shut down on No­vem­ber 30. Thou­sands of work­ers were ter­mi­nat­ed.
The as­sets were di­vid­ed in­to four com­pa­nies, Trinidad Pe­tro­le­um Hold­ings Ltd, Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny, Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny and Guaracara Re­fin­ery Ltd.
Source: Guardian, Sept. 24, 2019.

Irresponsible residents are contributing to flooding in the country by dumping garbage in the waterways.
Five Government ministers yesterday expressed their disappointment over what could be described as the trashy behaviour of some Trinbagonians whose actions cause many to suffer.
National Security Minister Stuart Young said the breaches of the riverbanks where people steal the materials are under investigation and once there is evidence the police will go after these inconsiderate people.
Young held a news conference yesterday at the National Security Ministry, Port of Spain, to update the media on the aftermath of Tropical Storm Karen.
He was accompanied by Local Government Minister Kazim Hosein, Public Utilities Minister Robert Le Hunte, Works Minister Rohan Sinanan and Agriculture Minister Clarence Rambharat. Source:  Trinidad Express, Sept 23, 2019

UN Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al An­to­nio Guter­res said the world is in a cli­mate cri­sis and steps must be tak­en by all world lead­ers in­clud­ing those in the Caribbean to mit­i­gate the ef­fects of glob­al warm­ing and cli­mate change.
Guter­res, spoke at a me­dia con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, at the of­fice of Prime Min­is­ter's Dr Hu­bert Min­nis in The Ba­hamas af­ter ar­riv­ing for a two day vis­it on the is­land. He first met with the Ba­hami­an Prime Min­is­ter to dis­cuss the dev­as­tat­ing im­pact of Hur­ri­cane Do­ri­an that as­sault­ed The Grand Ba­hama Is­lands and the Aba­co is­lands al­most two weeks ago.
"The fi­nan­cial cost of the dam­age caused by Do­ri­an is not clear, but it will be in the bil­lions of dol­lars.The Ba­hamas can­not be ex­pect­ed to foot this bill alone.These new large scale cli­mate-re­lat­ed dis­as­ters de­mand a new mul­ti­lat­er­al re­sponse," Guter­res said.
Send­ing a strong mes­sage to World and Caribbean lead­ers Guter­res said, "Cli­mate fi­nanc­ing is on el­e­ment.We must reach the tar­get of $100bil­lion dol­lars per year from pub­lic and pri­vate sources, for mit­i­ga­tion and adap­ta­tion in the de­vel­op­ing world, as rich coun­tries have been promis­ing for near­ly a decade."
Mak­ing ref­er­ence to the Ba­hamas, he said, "In cas­es like yours I strong­ly sup­port pro­pos­als to con­vert debt in­to in­vest­ment in re­silience. Con­ces­sion­al fi­nanc­ing must be made avail­able to high­ly-in­debt­ed mid­dle-in­come coun­tries that are vul­ner­a­ble to ex­treme weath­er events. But most im­por­tant­ly, the en­tire in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty must ad­dress the cli­mate cri­sis through rais­ing am­bi­tion and ac­tion to im­ple­ment the Paris Agree­ment."
Guter­res said this was ex­treme­ly im­por­tant as he paint­ed a grim pic­ture over the next ten years, if cli­mate change was not tak­en se­ri­ous­ly. "We are in a bat­tle for our lives.But it is a bat­tle we can and must win."
The UN Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al said his heart went out to the peo­ple of The Ba­hamas and pledged re­lief and oth­er as­sis­tance.
Prime Min­is­ter Min­nis said they did all they could have from the very first day the hur­ri­cane hit the is­lands.
He said that de­spite the fact that they were fac­ing a ma­jor ob­sta­cle try­ing to find ac­com­mo­da­tion for sev­er­al thou­sands he was cer­tain that over a pe­ri­od of time the prob­lem would be solved.
PM Min­nis said the Ba­hamas was still eco­nom­i­cal­ly sound and its "ma­jor fi­nan­cial hub of Nas­sau was un­af­fect­ed an still open for busi­ness." Source: The Guardian, September 14, 2019

Greedy butchers have been identified by Agriculture Minister Clarence Rambharat as being a key reason for the continuing trade of illegal livestock and wild meat from Venezuela. The T&T Coast Guard intercepted a vessel just south of Icacos with two male Venezuelan nationals on board, 42 goats, 1 sheep and 12 bottles of alcohol on Sunday night.
In a Facebook post, Rambharat commended the law enforcement officers as well as the ministry’s staff saying vets and other animal health personnel were involved in the action which included the eventual destruction of the animals due to public and animal health concerns.
“Venezuela has been red-flagged as a potential source of Foot and Mouth disease, a major threat to livestock,” Rambharat stated.He said over the past few years, there has been an upsurge in the illegal entry of livestock and wild meat from Venezuela.
“Despite the best efforts to stop the trade, it is being encouraged by greedy butchers looking for a cheap source of meat.”He said the livestock which are brought in illegally usually show signs of disease.“We have warned consumers about buying from vendors who may be purchasing from unscrupulous butchers or who may themselves be buying or importing animals illegally.”
Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is a highly contagious virus disease and is one of the most serious livestock diseases. It affects cloven-hoofed animals (those with divided hoofs), including cattle, buffalo, camels, sheep, goats, deer and pigs.Symptoms include fever, blisters in the mouth and on feet, drop in milk production, weight loss, and loss of appetite, quivering lips and frothing of mouth. Source: Newsday TT, September 2019.

HAVING lived through years of darkness because of cataracts, two 70-year-old grandmothers could not stop smiling and offering thanks after chosen for surgery by a medical team on the USNS Comfort, a US Navy hospital ship.
The ship is anchored near the Brighton Port at La Brea.
Today a team of doctors will begin to prepare grandmother of five Jemina George of Biche.
George smiled as she waited to the board the vessel.
“To me, this is like a dream come true. I am so happy to be chosen and I am excited about being able to see.” George told Newsday.
She said she had given up hope of having her vision restored.
“I think what these people are doing is so nice, and may God continue to bless them. They have made me a happy woman. This is one of the best gifts I have ever received.”
Point Fortin grandmother Shirley Best felt the same. When Newsday boarded the ship, Best was being taken to the surgical area for her second operation.
“I feel great. I had a cataract removed from my right eye here and now I am going to remove the cataract from my left eye.”
Best said she was grateful to the doctors and happy to be selected.
“I can’t wait to return home to see my children and begin to see properly,” she said.
Media personnel were given a tour of the hospital ship and invited into the operating theatre to witness Best's second cataract operation.
The ship's tour captain Charles Cather said in 1987 the ship, a former oil tanker, was converted into a hospital for disaster relief and humanitarian work.
He said the crew was happy to assist citizens and migrants.

“We are here to help when health care systems start to get overrun with higher volumes of patients than expected. We are happy to be here.”
Trinidad-born US Navy sailor Mitchell Julien said it has been nine months since he joined the navy and he has already been to several countries. But even though the visit was brief he was excited to be in TT to visit his family.
The 20-year-old Julien, from Arima, encouraged other young men to remain positive despite any challenges they may face.
“Work hard and do what you have to do. Stay focused and you can make it.”
The Comfort's medical team was expected to treat about 100 patients a day for the next five days.
The international medical professionals on board are expected to provide a wide range of surgery, dental screening and treatment, optometry screening and eyewear distribution, among other services.
The ship is anchored three miles off the port and the mission also has medical clinics on land at different venues, including the National Energy Skills Centre at La Brea and Funsplash at Debe. Source: Newsday, Sept. 6, 2019

​Four million people have fled Venezuela, as the country continues to face economic and political crisis.
40,000 have gone to the small Caribbean islands of Trinidad and Tobago, just seven miles off the coast.
But life isn’t easy for those who arrive, and some locals have made it clear they’re not welcome. The BBC’s Ashley John-Baptiste went to find out more.
In 2018 - more than 35,000 people were forced to flee their homes every day - that's one every two seconds.
This story is part of a BBC News series, called "The Displaced" - a selection of stories exploring the human impact of this movement, and how it is changing our world.
Check back next week, Monday 23rd September, for our next episode in Uganda #TheDisplaced
If you have been affected by these issues in Trinidad or anywhere else in the world and would like to speak to the BBC, email [email protected]