By: Spokesman Newsroom
BASSETERRE, St.Kitts- After a piece of document recently surfaced revealing that over one month ago, members of the Defence Force have had upgraded powers to that of the Police Force, opposition parliamentarian Hon. Konris Maynard is questioning why the government continues to be so secretive towards the public when it comes to sharing information.
“This is unheard of and we take umbrage with this because this is not how good leadership works. We have to inform the public of what is happening. People must be aware that now when they see a member of the St.Kitts Nevis Defence Force that they now have the powers of the police… vested in them by the Governor General so that they can respond appropriately,” he remarked while speaking on the Labour Party-sponsored ‘Issues’ programme aired live on Freedom FM (106.5) on Wednesday 19th July.
Maynard added: “This is really bad but broader than that it shows that in this secretive way, the government has gone about doing this perhaps because they feel it will not look good on their part that they had to request the services of the St.Kitts-Nevis Defence Force in aid of the police because they did not want to signal that they may have lost confidence in the police forces but this is what this effectively does. It’s saying that the police have reached a stage where they feel that they do not have the resources or man power to handle what is clear to everyone , an escalating crime problem in St.Kitts and so they have asked the Governor General to give these powers to the Defence Force.”
In criticising the details of the document, he stated: “It’s a step you do when you have a state of emergency. What is disheartening about this though is that this was made on the 22nd day of May, 2017.The 22nd day of May 2017, the proclamation was made by our Governor General on instructions from the Cabinet of our government. It is now a month and a half, almost two months since and this government does not have the decency, the decorum, the leadership to inform the public that these are the steps that have become necessary in their view to help address the escalating crime wave in St.Kitts-Nevis.”
Maynard expressed that while the two forces would always need to team up, the public should have been informed of such a move by the government.
“Now, there will always be the need for collaboration between the two forces but something like this should always be made public so that we the general public know what our government is doing and how we should respond to the forces.”
He accused the Harris-led administration of having mischievous management ways.
“We do not like the fact that this government continues to do everything under a cloud of darkness. Everything that they do has to be underhanded, has to be mischievous even if perhaps it is for some perceived good. Why was it necessary for this to be done without informing public? Why did this have to be done and not inform everyone of what was transpiring? It is because they were trying to hide their own inadequacies of dealing with the issue of crime and felt that by making this public, it would be a public admission that what they are doing with crime has not been working so they had to resort with the next level of assistance to out police forces.”