The Tribune

ANOTHER spate of murders has prompted questions over how effective the government’s strategy for fighting crime has been.

As we write this article, the murder count for the year stands at 113. Former Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis said on Monday that at this rate, the murder count will outpace last year’s tally of 119.

He said: “It will surpass last year’s numbers. That’s not a debate.”

He then called on the government to deliver a crime plan that works, as the killings continue – and questioned elements already proposed.

One of those was the appointment of Pastor Carlos Reid and Rodney Moncur. Dr Minnis said: “Obviously those consultants are not producing, they are receiving the people’s money but they are not producing because crime, violence and violent crimes and murders are going up.”

One of the aspects of those appointees’ work was to be the violence interrupter initiative, or so it seems. However, Dr Reid last month said that was still not up and running – which fairly reasonably prompts the questions of what is being done and what are people being paid for.

National Security Minister Wayne Munroe defended both of the appointments yesterday. He said there was only one consultant, Dr Reid, who was “concerned with running programmes that intervene with fellows on the street and he does that”.

He added: “If you have any idea about how it works, you don’t go around and put cameras on people you’re talking to.”

Mr Munroe then described Mr Moncur as “an independent contractor” who “engages with the community far and wide”.

Except that while Mr Munroe now says Mr Moncur is not a consultant, that’s not what the Prime Minister’s office said. In April, the Office of the Prime Minister’s director of communications, Latrae Rahming, had described Mr Moncur’s role as being a “consultant on crime” and as a “violence interrupter”.

He said: “The Ministry of National Security has engaged former (opposition) Senator Rodney Moncur as a consultant on crime. We have said before that crime is a multifaceted problem that must be tackled from a community level and a policing level. We have said that violence interrupters were a key component in solving the issue. We are using community leaders in our approach.”

Mr Rahming also noted the government’s use of Dr Reid at the time, and said “there (are) a number of people who are violence disruptors. This is a key and new initiative the government is rolling out…”

For a key initiative, it’s taking a long time to roll. And whatever the peculiarities of certain individual’s employment, it’s hard not to look at the soaring murder rate and think that whatever action is being taken, it doesn’t seem to be doing the job.

So when Mr Munroe leaps to the defence of current programmes while not really acknowledging what is happening on his watch, one wonders exactly what the strategy is that will actually stop this seemingly unending bloodbath.

All Mr Munroe does in response to Dr Minnis’ criticisms is point his finger at the previous administration and at global trends – and pointing the finger isn’t going to fix anything.

When is this violence interrupter initiative going to start? What are its stated goals? What is its budget? How much has already been spent? What will we do on top of that to stop another series of murders next weekend? Or the weekend after that?

All around us, people are dying – and political point-scoring isn’t helping any of those in the path of the bullets.

What is the plan? And why is it taking so long?

These are questions the minister should be able to answer – and if the murder count continues to soar under his watch, he ought to expect tough questions. It is, after all, the toughest of tasks.