By: Spokesman Newsroom
BASSETERRE, St.Kitts (THURSDAY 23RD AUGUST 2018) – “When our criminals are getting bolder by the day, with senior police sergeants being brutally cut down and armed robberies taking place within public view for all to see, without any fear whatsoever, we must all admit that something is desperately wrong.”
Such sentiment was expressed by Opposition Leader of the St.Kitts Nevis Labour Party Dr. Denzil Douglas while speaking at the party’s specially-organised press conference on crime held on Wednesday 22nd August at the Koi Building located at the Airport Road as he called for national togetherness in tackling the issue.
He added: “When criminals can turn on a brother who was born and raised in the very same community, go to school with that person, interact with his family and friends and yet be so spiritually deficient as to turn on that brother and savagely take his life with no regard for the impact on him, no regard at all for the impact on his children and his own family, his community and his nation, this shows that our society and the cultural fabric that binds us together is definitely broken. It tells us that we have lost as a nation the sense of social cohesion and brotherly love that have for so long been a part of the ethos of our great Federation.”
The immediate former Prime Minister and Minister of National Security commented that addressing the issue of crime has to do with the method and leadership of the country which are both presently “wrong” under the Harris-led administration.
Dr. Douglas questioned the results of the government’s various point plans to tackle the issue and also questioned the leadership approach in curbing the situation.
“As the rapidly escalating crime situation demonstrates, the problem isn’t so much the lack of money and resources, it is due to the fact that the method, the method has to be wrong and the leadership has to be wrong as well. The government has announced that it has a Sixteen-Point Plan, it has said before it has a twelve- point plan, a ten- point plan, an eight-point plan, a six -point Plan but where are the results of these plans? Their plans are obviously not working,” the former National Security Minister said.
He also questioned: “Where is the leadership, I ask? Where is the leadership? I contend that the Harris Administration has proven itself extremely lacking in competence and leadership to effectively address the pressing crime problem of our Federation. There must be leadership; leadership to point the new way forward. The Team Unity government has shown, time and again, that it is incredibly lacking in innovative ideas that would bring a new approach that would yield results in cutting crime.
Dr. Douglas has called on the government to establish again a special National Commission on crime.
“ We must all put our heads together, our heads must be put together to combine our ideas and take a holistic, multi-pronged approach in order to effectively cut crime.”
According to him, “The St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party has always insisted that crime is a matter that requires the total involvement of all stakeholders whether it is government, Opposition, private sector, civil society, the media; whether it is parents, teachers, or ordinary citizens, we all must engage in a national discussion that would coalesce our varied and maybe different viewpoints around one single core objective and that is how we cut crime and take preventative measures to curb criminality to ensure that offences do not take place in the first instance.”
The Opposition Leader outlined that: “At this present rate, our nation, our bleeding nation faces the alarming possibility that 2018 will be one of the bloodiest and crime-riddled years in the history of our once peaceful St.Kitts and Nevis. This, I remind us, must not be allowed to continue to happen. The time has come to break out of the sterile debates and to take bold, unprecedented and decisive action to effectively cut crime.”
Photo: “The time has come to break out of the sterile debates and to take bold, unprecedented and decisive action to effectively cut crime.”- Opposition Leader Dr. Denzil Douglas speaking at the Party’s press conference on crime this week. (Spokesman Snap)