SOEs get nod again from Senate
Published:Saturday | July 25, 2020 | 12:19 AMPaul Clarke/Gleaner Writer
Leader of Government business in the Senate Kamina Johnson Smith led a chorus of impassioned pleas to colleagues on the Opposition benches to support the extension of the states of public emergency in five locations across the country.
In the end, all five Emergency Powers Continuance Resolutions 2020 were approved by a vote of 15 in favour while five Opposition senators voted against them. These include Senators K.D. Knight, Floyd Morris, Lambert Brown and Sophia Frazer-Binns.
The resolutions were passed by the House of Representatives on Tuesday.
Government senators Matthew Samuda, Charles Sinclair and Ransford Braham sought to highlight the successes of the Government’s crime-fighting strategy.
In opening the debate, Johnson Smith said that Jamaica faces the expiration of five states of public emergency across the country, while indicating that neither the security forces nor the Government has ever said that states of emergency provide the answer to all matters pertaining to the fight against violent crimes.
“We have never said they are a panacea to solve all our ills and we have certainly never said that they represent the sum total of our crime plan, our anti-crime strategies,” Johnson Smith stressed.
Accomplishing key goals
She said the states of public emergency have been accomplishing certain key goals and saving lives while also giving residents greater assurances of safety and protection.
After highlighting data showing reductions in crime in St James, Westmoreland, Hanover, Clarendon, St Catherine North, St Andrew Southern and Kingston Eastern, Government senators were challenged by senior Opposition lawmaker K.D. Knight who argued that the figures were somehow not giving a true reflection of the success they were alluding to.
“As you speak and persuasively you do so. You told me and our colleagues, you tell us of the successes and you tell us it is down 69 per cent here, it’s down 23 per cent here; it’s down 10 per cent there and I say to myself if these attractive percentages are being achieved then why is the figures so high?”
“Why is it that with all these reductions we are still afraid? Something is not adding up,” he said.