MONTEGO BAY, St James — Minister of National Security Peter Bunting has bemoaned the continued bloodletting in St James and other police divisions, despite the launch of Operation Resilience which targets gangs.

“The JCF launched Operation Resilience for the beginning of this month and have had good success in almost every police division. St James continues to be one of the most challenging divisions,” Bunting said Thursday.

“We made some good progress in St James over the last year or so, but we have seen some slippage recently. And we have to cauterise that and nip it in the bud,” he added.

St James leads all 13 other parishes in murders committed this year, recording 126 homicides up until Thursday — two more than the 24 recorded over the corresponding period last year.

Two of the latest incidents saw four people being shot, two fatally, in separate gun attacks in the parish between Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning.

The deceased have been identified as 24-year-old Romaine Baker, otherwise called ‘Romeo’ or ‘Porter’ of Retirement; and 28-year-old taxi operator Canute Thompson.

On Thursday, Bunting — who was speaking at the handing over of a $91-million cheque from the Tourism Enhancement Fund (TEF) to his ministry at the Yacht Club in Montego Bay — explained that the fight against crime in St James is compounded by the lack of infrastructure in informal communities, which gives rise to the need for specialised vehicles such as pickup trucks.

The funds will be used to procure vehicles for police operations on land and sea in western Jamaica.

“Because of the geography and the informal communities, it requires a lot of resources, a lot of vehicles in particular. So I am really happy that when I appealed to the Minister (of Tourism and Industry) and the chairman of the Tourism Enhancement Fund, they not only responded but they responded quickly and they responded substantively,” Bunting argued.

“So this $91 million in total today… both on the marine side and the land side, [is] going to contribute tremendously to improving citizen security in St James in particular…,” he added.

Meanwhile, Minister of Tourism and Entertainment Wykeham McNeill, who handed over the cheque, argued that all Jamaicans should join in the fight against crime.

“Often, as a country, we tend to point the finger and say what is to be done and who should do it; this is not the work only [of] the ministry and the minister of national security. It is the work of every Jamaican. We must join together to fight crime or fight against the scourge against our society,” McNeill said.

“We, in tourism, understand that we also have to be a part of this. And we have determined that we are going to play our role in joining with the Ministry of National Security to ensure that we can do everything that we can to fight the scourge of crime and violence,” he remarked.