Dear Editor,
I refer to the media release by the People's National Party (PNP) and the subsequent statement in Parliament on Tuesday by National Security Minister Peter Bunting, effectively chiding the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and its leader, Andrew Holness, for making "irresponsible" statements on the political campaign trail in respect of our alarming crime rate.
I wholeheartedly agree that our crime problem and, I dare say, education and health at a minimum, are issues or sectors that we should not deliberately or irresponsibly seek to politicise, but rather around which we should aim to achieve maximum bipartisan support in an effort to move our country forward.
I question, however, the sincerity of Bunting and the PNP as well as their moral authority in so lecturing the JLP. Was it not important to Bunting, while in Opposition a few years ago, to keep the politics out of crime and seek to work with the then JLP Government to deal with our crime problem? Was Bunting not playing politics with our crime problem when he would opine that Christopher 'Dudus' Coke and his Tivoli Gardens base were the root cause of our crime problem? Who or what is now causing the alarming number of murders?
Was Bunting not playing politics with our crime problem when he was mocked the JLP for changing the national security minister three times? Perhaps, the JLP, as the better manager of our country's affairs, will not hesitate to change ministers of government if they are not performing or exhibiting the greatest competence, rather than to, as is especially the case with this PNP Administration, maintain non-performers or incompetent persons in ministries while the nation's affairs suffer.
Was Bunting not playing politics with our crime problem when he and the PNP refused to lend support to the then JLP Government for the extension of the state of emergency into St Catherine to decimate one of the nation's most notorious criminal organisations, the Klansman Gang with alleged links to the PNP?
Have Bunting and the PNP, now that they are in Government, finally had their Damascus Road experience, or do they now only find it necessary to call for bipartisan support for crime because they are the ones now feeling the heat in the kitchen?
Opposition Leader Andrew Holness might have stressed or dramatised his point a little much by asking voters to vote out the PNP if they want to be able to go to bed again without locking their doors and wake up alive the following day as certainly, our crime problem would not be solved overnight upon a JLP victory at the upcoming polls.
What is patently clear, however, and our statistics show, our crime problem is better handled, and murder generally trends down whenever the JLP forms the Government, perhaps in part because the JLP is unquestionably the better manager of our economic affairs.
Kevin KO Sangster
sangstek@msn.com
Playing politics with crime problem
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I refer to the media release by the People's National Party (PNP) and the subsequent statement in Parliament on Tuesday by National Security Minister Peter Bunting, effectively chiding the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and its leader, Andrew Holness, for making "irresponsible" statements on the political campaign trail in respect of our alarming crime rate.
I wholeheartedly agree that our crime problem and, I dare say, education and health at a minimum, are issues or sectors that we should not deliberately or irresponsibly seek to politicise, but rather around which we should aim to achieve maximum bipartisan support in an effort to move our country forward.
I question, however, the sincerity of Bunting and the PNP as well as their moral authority in so lecturing the JLP. Was it not important to Bunting, while in Opposition a few years ago, to keep the politics out of crime and seek to work with the then JLP Government to deal with our crime problem? Was Bunting not playing politics with our crime problem when he would opine that Christopher 'Dudus' Coke and his Tivoli Gardens base were the root cause of our crime problem? Who or what is now causing the alarming number of murders?
Was Bunting not playing politics with our crime problem when he was mocked the JLP for changing the national security minister three times? Perhaps, the JLP, as the better manager of our country's affairs, will not hesitate to change ministers of government if they are not performing or exhibiting the greatest competence, rather than to, as is especially the case with this PNP Administration, maintain non-performers or incompetent persons in ministries while the nation's affairs suffer.
Was Bunting not playing politics with our crime problem when he and the PNP refused to lend support to the then JLP Government for the extension of the state of emergency into St Catherine to decimate one of the nation's most notorious criminal organisations, the Klansman Gang with alleged links to the PNP?
Have Bunting and the PNP, now that they are in Government, finally had their Damascus Road experience, or do they now only find it necessary to call for bipartisan support for crime because they are the ones now feeling the heat in the kitchen?
Opposition Leader Andrew Holness might have stressed or dramatised his point a little much by asking voters to vote out the PNP if they want to be able to go to bed again without locking their doors and wake up alive the following day as certainly, our crime problem would not be solved overnight upon a JLP victory at the upcoming polls.
What is patently clear, however, and our statistics show, our crime problem is better handled, and murder generally trends down whenever the JLP forms the Government, perhaps in part because the JLP is unquestionably the better manager of our economic affairs.
Kevin KO Sangster
sangstek@msn.com
Playing politics with crime problem
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