Opposition ‘fed up’ with Gov’t pussyfooting on crime

Senator Peter Bunting, the Opposition spokesman on national security, has declared that the Opposition is fed up with the myriad of excuses he says the Andrew Holness administration has been providing in relation to fighting crime.

“I am disappointed in the prime minister. Whenever an incident like this occurs, he seeks to blame others. He is responsible for the safety and security of the Jamaican people. Now that he has been there for seven years he has to take full responsibility for the failure in national security. We are fed up with his excuses,” Bunting said while leading a team from his party on a tour of two sites in Gregory Park where the homes of more than 70 people were firebombed, rendering them homeless.

He continued: “If the courts said that what they were doing is unconstitutional, then he must accept the ruling and find other creative ways to keep the Jamaican people safe.”

Holness had on Monday toured the Walkers Avenue site where more than 40 people were burnt out of their homes.

During his tour, and while mulling new laws to tackle violent ‘terrorists’, Holness said there was an element in the society who did not want the Government to empower the police force to act pre-emptively.

The Opposition People’s National Party (PNP) has often pushed back against the use of states of emergency as a crime fighting tool.

While declaring that the police have indicated to him that the motivation behind the attacks was gangsters fighting for turf, and not politics, Bunting said the Opposition would support any measure within the law to give the police the power to deal with the ‘terrorist’s violence.

He said that, in 2019, the Opposition discussed with the Government the establishment of Enhanced Security Measures legislation, which was agreed on in principle and, until now, it has not even been drafted.

“Yet, when they want to extend the tenure of the DPP (director of public prosecutions), they ram something through Parliament in one day. But the things that will make a fundamental difference to the safety and security of Jamaicans, they have been sitting on it for four years and done nothing,” Bunting charged.

In the meantime, Mayor of Portmore Leon Thomas disclosed that the municipal council has now been given the go ahead to clean up the area where the fire took place.

“We are going to move to do the clean up and then we are going to look at the structures that are here and see if we can make some temporary arrangements to ensure that people can be sheltered until the main structures are rebuilt,” Thomas assured.

The mayor said he would fast track any documentation that reaches the council as it relates to a planned social housing initiative.