The Tribune

NATIONAL Security Minister Wayne Munroe yesterday urged the Free National Movement to “stop playing petty politics” as it makes them “look silly”.

The minister criticised the FNM saying they had no idea what a proper crime response looked like as when the former administration was in office they allowed the Royal Bahamas Police Force to “run down in numbers”, stopped all the diversionary programmes, adding there were nearly insufficient police cars to carry out patrols.

“We met 160 cars laid up in the police garage,” he said. “We’re getting them on the streets to the family islands. We met the programmes stopped. We’ve restarted them and we’re starting new ones.”

Mr Munroe pushed back yesterday at the opposition’s criticism earlier this week that the minister was disconnected from the commissioner of police in terms of their view of the state of crime in the country. On Monday, Minister of National Security Wayne Munroe said the crime issue was a crisis while Commissioner Clayton Fernander had a different view.

Mr Munroe changed his tone saying: “The commissioner says there is no crime crisis.

“A crisis is a time when you have to make a dangerous, difficult decision. For the police there is no crisis. They catch you, they lock you up. That’s not a crisis.

“For me as minister of national security if you listen to what the governor of Turks and Caicos said, what the prime minister said, what world leaders all over the world are saying countries have difficult decisions to make because criminals aren’t created by the police. They’re caught by the police. Criminals are created by society so the tough decision, the crisis that society has is to stop making criminals, is to stop tolerating them. It’s as simple as that.”

He continued: “It’s rich for the opposition who let the police force run down in numbers, who stopped all of the diversionary programmes where when I took the chair we had problems having cars on the road for saturation patrols. We’ve responded quickly. They don’t know what the response looks like because they don’t know how to deal with crime.

“So, they don’t understand that you have to put policemen on the streets, so you have to recruit. This is another recruit class. The portal is open, we’re recruiting another squad and we’ll recruit another squad.

“We have vehicles we put on the streets. We met 160 cars laid up in the police garage. We’re getting them on the streets to the Family Islands. We met the programmes stopped. We’ve restarted them and we’re starting new ones.

“Shortly you will see the introduction of the Hype Programme to intervene with primary school students. They don’t understand what we’re doing because they don’t understand what a crime strategy looks like.”

He also defended the decision to send a small group of local police officers to Turks and Caicos.

“We already train Turks and Caicos officers. Squad A graduation was of Turks and Caicos officers. In the first week of operations they have already arrested a person wanted in The Bahamas in the Turks and Caicos.

“It’s amazing that the leader of the opposition is from Grand Bahama where the largest concentration of people related to Turks islanders live. So, he should know how easily people move backward and forward.

“I would invite them to stop playing petty politics. It makes them look silly.

“Every Bahamian knows the free flow of people between the Turks and Caicos Islands and The Bahamas. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out how criminals can move easily so they need to be serious.

“None of them came to us and asked for any briefing as to what the police officers are doing in Turks and Caicos. They still don’t know what the police officers are doing in Turks and Caicos. Yet they are criticising. So, they don’t seem to generally be interested in working with us.”