Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar did not attend the funeral service at St Crispin’s Anglican Church in Woodbrook, yesterday, for Gary Trevor Griffith Sr, the father of her national security adviser, Gary Griffith Jnr. However, a relative said permanent secretary in the Office of the Prime Minister Reynold Cooper was present. Prakash Ramadhar, leader of the Congress of the People, one of the parties in the PM’s coalition government, attended the service but no other government MP was seen.
Griffith resigned from the UNC earlier this month but said he still supports the People’s Partnership coalition and remains the PM’s national security adviser. His wife, Nicole Dyer-Griffith, is deputy chairman of the COP. Griffith’s grief was particularly intense as he was an only child and lost both his mother and his father within six months. His father, 77, died of cancer. Despite his pain, he agreed to be interviewed by the T&T Guardian after the funeral service on his political status.
Standing over the casket of his father inside the church, with his wife and their ten-year-old son Gary Griffith III nearby, Griffith said, “I resigned from the UNC, not the PP Government. I still remain a supporter of the PP Government.” Asked about his relations with Persad-Bissessar, he said, “We get along very well. There is no animosity.” Asked if he might join the COP, he replied, “Only time will tell.”
Griffith said as national security adviser to the PM, he continues to be dedicated to finding the right policies to make the country safer. Politics aside, he spoke of his father, a retired shipping manager, to whom he was very close, he said. “I was much closer to my dad. He wasn’t just my dad, he was my best friend.” Griffith said he had no regrets about not doing certain things with his father.
“Within the last year, everything we could have done together, we did it all.” Griffith said his father was a supporter of the COP and inspired his political career.