The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

No one could be encouraged by anything that the Prime Minister had to say on the Government’s new effort to tackle crime.

I suppose we should not be surprised that following a full day of meeting in Cabinet to discuss a renewed fight against crime, the PM met the press and read a statement but refused to take questions. This was not very reassuring.

It would seem that the PM did not know what he could say in response to questions guaranteed to be asked by the press. What could he say? Admit that he and his Government were unprepared to assume office in May 2012? Acknowledge that it was not true that his Party had a plan to fight crime? Concede that he and his Cabinet Members have found it difficult if not impossible to detangle themselves from their personal relationships with any number of suspicious characters in our country both Bahamian and foreign? Disclose that under PLP administrations political favours and payback take precedence over public interests?

We now know that the PLP campaign promise to address our crime problem was a propaganda stunt. Unfortunately, too many of us were taken in by their campaign declarations about a plan to fight crime beginning on Day 1. Their slick TV campaign videos and their menacing posters about crime under the FNM plastered along our streets convinced too many of us to vote for them.

There really is a lesson to be taken from the “once bitten, twice shy” refrain but we failed to learn it. Now we are stuck with the same ineffective, talkative government that we had before May 2, 2007.

As the official murder count reaches 120 for this calendar year and the unofficial tally moves closer to 136 – not including police shootings, 9 more than in the previous worst year in our history, 2011, we are left to wonder what dimension our government ministers live in because it is certainly not reality.

It now seems evident that the number of murders throughout the country during 2013 is higher than in 2012. In New Providence, where the Government claimed to be concentrating its anti-crime fight, the total number of murders has far exceeded the total for last year. By mid-December 2013 there were 12 more murders in Nassau than in 2012. And that number increased following the massacre in Fox Hill and additional separate killings.

The PM’s Spin: making existing laws and programmes into proposals for ‘New Action’

Now the PM says his Government wants to do something about our Bail Laws to make it more difficult for those charged with serious crimes to be granted bail.

When the PLP won election in May 2012, the newly minted Minister of National Security declared that our bail laws were too tough resulting in too many young men being locked up. His statements were reminiscent of his PLP predecessor in office, Mother Pratt, who made visiting violent prisoners confined to Her Majesty’s prison in Fox Hill a priority following her first appointment as Minister Responsible for National Security.

The PLP also quickly found fault with the new Police Act which placed a term limit on the appointment of Commissioners of Police. The PLP changed that. The result is that it will be more difficult for us to get a new Commissioner of Police anytime soon.

Under the law enacted by the FNM, the Commissioner could have retired at the end of his contract next year and be granted a livable pension. And, the Police Force could have benefitted from new Leadership. Instead we are now stuck with a Police Commissioner whose short tenure in office has the distinction of four consecutive years during which the murder count has reached the highest ever recorded levels.

Now the PM says he will cause a new court to be dedicated to firearms cases; what’s become of the Gun Court, established by the FNM Government over which the Chief Magistrate presided?

And how does the PM explain that just months ago his acting Attorney General granted a nolle prosequi in an unlawful possession of a firearms case that permitted two accused individuals, charged with a criminal gun offence, to escape the police continuing prosecution? To this day, the PM has not caused his Government to let light shine on that decision.

Now the PM says that he will accelerate the training of new police recruits. How? The last time a PLP Government “accelerated” police recruit training it meant cutting their training programmes from 12 months to just 6 months. What we got were poorly trained recruits put onto the streets inadequately equipped to deal with crime. We should not repeat that mistake!

What the PM can do is explain why, since his Government’s election to office, he permitted a full 18 month period to pass before beginning recruitment for a new class of police officers.

The PM announces as if new, that the police will do what they have been doing all along: target prolific offenders, deploy plainclothes police to improve intelligence gathering – and there is even talk of a new period of 12-hour shifts for policemen. In an earlier time some PLP’s called 12 hour shifts outmoded colonial style policing! Suddenly, it is new and effective.

The problem is not with the police who daily put their lives on the line to protect law-abiding citizens. The problem is with the political directorate who seek to interfere with police work when it does not fit with their political agendas.

The PM says that he is considering a weapons gun buy-back, exchange programme. This is not exactly an original thought is it? How many such gun amnesties has the police force conducted before? What was the impact on crime? Has anyone bothered to track it?

Laws that could assist the crime fight but which the PM hasn’t considered

The PM says that a new Gang Unit will be established in the Police Force. Perhaps he will first start by proposing a law to make membership in a gang a crime. Then the Police would have a basis for arresting and charging gang members.

And he might also consider proposing a law that requires lawyers to “know their customers” and the source of their customer’s money. Many young men, charged before our Courts on serious matters are believed to commit new crimes to get monies to pay the hefty fees charged by their lawyers for their cases already before the Court. The Government must have an interest in requiring lawyers to demonstrate that fees paid to them are not paid from the proceeds of crime.

And, now the PM says that they will clear empty lots used for gun hideaways.

Wasn’t Urban Renewal 2.0 supposed to do that? I suppose that part of Urban Renewal 2.0 has gone the same way as the DPM’s plan to keep the grass in our parks and along the streets tidy; it gets cut when the grass is 2 feet tall or higher.

Before the election Urban Renewal 2.0 was the central pillar of the PLP anti-crime plan. When the PM met the press following a special Cabinet meeting on crime, Urban Renewal 2.0 was lost among his proposed new plan to fight crime.

The PLP have expended more than $16 million on Urban Renewal 2.0 since May, 2012. Some persons claim that additional monies are owed to them under the programme. Still no one in the Government has accounted for how the money was spent – not the PM, and not the Deputy Prime Minister, who is in charge of the programme.

Now, the PM says he’s going to clear some additional lots of bush. We must assume that this programme will follow the example set during the last 18 months. We cannot be faulted for thinking that this might be just another ploy to put more money into the hands of favoured PLP hacks?

Now the PM says that the CCTV programme will be expanded. Is the Government not proceeding with the time schedule left in place by the FNM to do just that? When the PM could do something to expand CCTV he chose instead to hold off, just as he was also holding off on improving and expanding the ankle-bracelet programme and just as he abandoned the Volunteer Bahamas community building initiative.

And while the Government has been vocal in its complaints about the last private sector provider of the ankle bracelet surveillance it has yet to identify a replacement company. In fact, the bidding process is still unfinished and among the approved bidders is the company that the Government claims to have found to be deficient!

Now the PM says that the police vehicles that have been piling up waiting for repairs will now be repaired.

I am told that many of the “out of order” police cars only require small replacement parts. Why haven’t these been purchased? Is it that money needed for those parts is being spent on other essential business – like Ministers of Government travelling the world first class or maybe ZNS and others travelling to watch Miami Dolphins games?!

The PM says that they are going to accelerate work to create additional courts. He might explain why his government has delayed the work to the court complex on Bank Lane by over a year! While he is at it, he may also advise us where he is going to find sufficient lawyers in the AG’s office, support staff and police officers to man 10 Supreme Courts and what he will pay all of them with. And he might also tell us where he’ll find the additional jury men and women to sit on these courts’ cases.

Are we to have “bodies“ engaged to administer justice regardless to whether they meet the standard required? We know what happened when the PLP did this with police recruits prior to 1992.

And while he is at it, the PM may tell us how the present criminal courts are doing in terms of disposing of criminal cases. Of course the Judiciary must also find suitable persons to be Judges in these additional Courts.

Hopefully the PM’s proposed cure is not going to be worse than the problem we have today!

At Budget time, the PM and his merry band of inept ministers were busy defunding as many anti-crime initiatives left in place by the FNM as possible in favour of what was supposed to be their plan to fight crime. As it turns out, their plan was no plan at all.

The way I see it, the PLP have a problem of making common cause with murderers, thieves and other law breakers and then pretending to be shocked when the criminals take their friendship for granted and continue to break the law as if they have authorization to do so.

Crime is out of control in Nassau and at least some of the blame must be placed at the feet of this PLP Government which has deliberately discontinued anti-crime initiatives left in place by its predecessor Government while failing to introduce new replacement initiatives.

Crime is out of control in Nassau and at least some of the blame must be placed at the feet of those in leadership who permit their political agendas to take precedence over the national interest of reducing crime and bringing criminals to justice.

Crime is out of control in Nassau and at least some of the blame must be placed at the feet of leaders who curry favour with criminals to advance their political agendas and their private interests.

Crime is out of control and the Prime Minister has just confirmed that his Government does not have a clue on how to proceed to address the problem.

We cannot expect leadership on the anti-crime front from this Government. We can only and must pray for a better 2014.

GEOFFREY COOPER

Nassau,

December 31, 2013