What SOE success?

Bunting slams PM for failure to rein in murders

FORMER NATIONAL Security Minister Peter Bunting has blasted the Holness administration over what he says is a failure to curb murder amid multibillion-dollar spending and coronavirus restrictions.

Bunting’s scolding of the Government and the national security hierarchy comes days after Police Commissioner Major General Antony Anderson and army chief Lieutenant General Rocky Meade told the country that states of emergency (SOEs) were successful.

But armed with latest crime statistics published by the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF), Bunting sought to tore down that argument.

“The policy has been a colossal failure. After three successive years of extensive use of states of emergency and the consequent huge diversion of resources away from ZOSOs, among other things, the annual number of murders has been higher in each of these years of the state of emergency than any single year between 2011 and 2015, when there was no state of emergency.

“How on earth can that be described as a success? [It] cannot be,” Bunting said, accusing the administration of gaslighting the public.

All major crimes, except murder, have fallen year-on-year. Murders have remained constant – at 609 up to June 13 – compared to 2019 data.

And taking direct aim at Prime Minister Andrew Holness, who said on Sunday while declaring two more SOEs that Jamaica had “super gangs”, Bunting accused him of political spin.

Bunting also knocked the JCF, accusing it of suppressing the weekly crime statistics and arguing that the behaviour was in conflict with the behaviour expected in a liberal democracy.

“It is the behaviour of authoritarian regimes!” he said.

Chang rose in the House on a point of order to rebut Bunting, saying that access was being restricted to the preliminary morning incidents.