By Rawle Nelson.
St. Kitts and Nevis's Prime Minister, Dr the Hon Denzil Douglas declared that the People's Action Movement attempt to gain political power through the politicizing of crime failed. PM Douglas was at the time speaking at his first monthly press conference since being reelected for a fourth consecutive term after the January 25th elections. The press conference which was held in the parliamentary lounge of Government headquarters saw the Prime Minister speaking on a number of wide ranging issues while he responded to a number of allegations which were leveled against him in the lead up to the elections.
He pointed out that PAM's attempts failed as the public were cognizant of the numerous and ongoing initiatives that he has been implementing in addressing crime. He pointed out that crime is a regional issue which continued to pose growing challenges and difficulties despite the successes.
"The government did put a strategic plan in place to counter crime and it continues to yield results it is very, very unfortunate that so far there are about 4 or 5 people involved in homicide so far for this year. We may have recovered 5 or 6 illegal weapons so far to date from the roads but this gives you an idea of how dynamic the situation is in our fight against crime, it is yielding results but crime continues," he said.
Commenting on the People's Action Movement, the Prime Minister said that the opposition used it to gain political power. "I believe that the opposition used the situation to politicize crime and to individualize it. I understand that they were billboards around the country purported to address me, the Prime Minister with regards to being responsible for crime in St Kitts and Nevis, I didn't know that I was that good," he said.
The St Kitts and Nevis Prime Minister declared that his party being reelected for what he termed as a historic fourth term is a demonstration of the public's willingness to support his Labour administration. He however admitted that the issue of crime continues to be a top priority of his administration stating that he is aware and cognizant of the numerous challenges and difficulties that the police are confronted with.
"The People's Action Movement that tried desperately to politicized crime failed and was rejected is a clear indication that the people of St Kitts and Nevis clearly understand and would wish to support the policies and the programmes that have been enunciated that are being implemented in pursuit by the labour government of the former administration and of now," he said.
He admitted that he is not satisfied with the progress that is being made noting that things are moving too slowly stressing that while the plan has been effective thus far he wants things to improve much faster. He pointed out that a number of improvements and developments have been made with regards to a number of police stations and facilities declaring that there is an immediate urgent need for significant improvements of the Police Barracks at the force's headquarters. "There is an urgent need to improve the conditions that the police live under at the barracks and we will be working to aggressively address those conditions among others," he noted.
He declared that despite his administration being faced with challenging financial conditions the issue of ensuring that the federation's police are provided and enhanced with the required facilities so as to improve the federation's crime fighting efforts are pertinent if his administration will succeed in fighting crime. " I am aware that the police are faced with a number of bad conditions but we will address those almost immediately as despite our financial situation we recognize that these conditions has to be improved if we are going to effectively address crime," he said.
Identifying some of the initiatives that his administration have been engaged in so as to tackle the issue of crime, Dr Douglas said that the recent implementation of closed circuit television is geared at seriously tackling crime. "We have already placed such at the Basseterre police headquarters; we have also identified other areas in Basseterre where such have been instituted. I have been told that they been very good reviews for the police in terms of their crime fighting capacities and we are now pursuing this whole initiative also on the island of Nevis," he said. The Prime Minister commended the various stakeholders who he said have been engaged in this activity noting that he would also want to commend only the service providers but also to the benefactors and those who he said also collaborated.
Prime Minister Douglas thanked LIME noting that their contributions was a commitment that they had made noting that the company fulfilled its promise. He also singled out the Ambassador of the Republic of China on Taiwan; His Excellency RC Wu who he said also played a significant role in the establishment of some of these initiatives. "...his embassy came forward and has served in this capacity very well in ensuring that adequate support is being provided to our police and the security forces generally in the fight against crime," he said.
He declared that the issue of fighting crime should be fought by all. "We continue to emphasize that fighting crime is every body business and the government's intention is to involve every individual, every group, community, section or other wise to make a contributions".
