MONTEGO BAY, St James

St James’ tough-talking commanding officer Superintendent Steve McGregor on Monday promised to deploy more officers into Flankers, even as the community signed a multimillion dollar deal with the Jamaica Social Investment Fund (JSIF) to facilitate social improvement.

The deal, which is being funded through a grant and loan from the Japanese Government and the World Bank, will see US$25 million being spent to improve infrastructure and social services in 14 inner-city communities across the island, including Flankers.

“Flankers has potential. There is hope for Flankers to be a great community, but don’t fool yourselves, you have not arrived yet,” McGregor told an audience of just under 100 residents, who attended the signing at Flankers Primary and Junior High School.

“When you have children dropping out of school at the GSAT (Grade Six Achievement Test) level. the parents will have to account to me. You have some men who are getting 12 and 13-year-olds pregnant and the mothers are condoning it because these men are giving them money,” the superintendent said.

“Some of them are taking men into the house to live, and they feel that they can have sex with the young girls because they are not their biological daughters. We a go lock dem up. My community officers will be coming around, and we a go lock you up,” he added.

McGregor, who replaced Superintendent Warren Clarke earlier this year, also promised that his leadership in St James would translate into a reduction in the number of criminals in the parish before the year was out.

“I am going to catch a lot of them (criminals) before I leave here. before the year is out, before the election is called. I don’t necessarily want to kill them or do them anything bad. I’ll give them a chance to come in… but it is possible that some of them will die. some of my officers will die.” he said.

Pointing to a number of strategies and solutions that parents interested in raising their children properly could employ, McGregor, who also grew up in an inner-city community, said poverty was no excuse for delinquent parenting.

“Not having money is no excuse. Most of us were brought up (in circumstances), where our parents had no money. Send the children to school. Send them to Sunday school because the teaching of the Bible is wholesome, and it helps youngsters to become good persons.” he said.

“Pay attention to your children, when your daughters begin to have sex early you can tell – they walk differently. Their backs begin to arch more and the chest goes up,” he added to peals of laughter.

The residents were also warned not to fight over the money, which according to Member of Parliament for North-West St James Horace Chang, could come up to more than $400 million if they played their cards right.

“This is no monkey money. This could be very big if we do things properly,” he said.

Henry McCurdy, caretaker for North-West St James, reinforced the point.

“Just forget the politics and let us work together as a family,” he said.

But the sternest warning of all came from John Meeks, one of JSIF’s representatives.

“The money is there. It is ready if you just work with the programme. But if the project gets to a point where war is going to bruk out over it, JSIF will just take their money and leave,” he said. “The only way we will return is if we are guaranteed that the project will continue without violence,” Meeks added.