PNP Patriots call for security minister to be fired amid controversy at FLA

People's National Party (PNP) affiliate, The Patriots, is calling for the national security minister to be relieved of his post in light of the controversy that has engulfed the Firearms Licensing Authority (FLA). 

In a release this morning, newly elected president of The Patriots, Omar Newell, said the attitude of Robert Montague to national security puts the nation at risk and causes a sense of hopelessness across the society.

According to the PNP affiliate, they believe that the emerging scandal at the FLA involving the selling of firearm licences to persons of questionable character is further evidence that the security minister is operating under a banner of ineptitude, incompetence, corruption and recklessness; and does not have the safety and interest of Jamaica at heart.

After the FLA Board was summoned to a meeting by the security minister on Friday, it was announced that the agency's deputy chairman, Dennis Meadows, will step aside.

Meadows would recuse himself while the Major Organised Crime and Anti-Corruption (MOCA) agency conduct a probe into the approval and issuance of gun licences to persons who were reportedly flagged following police probes into their background.

But the Opposition spokesman on National Security, Peter Bunting, has since said the entire FLA Board needs to resign while an investigation is carried and a suspension placed on the issuance of new gun licences.

"With the murder rate skyrocketing and manoeuvring fragile economy, there is no room for experimenting with Jamaica’s future," Newell said in the release.