THE People’s National Party Youth Organisation (PNPYO) has called on Prime Minister Andrew Holness to shuffle his Cabinet in order to relieve National Security Minister Robert Montague of his portfolio amid growing concerns about the country’s crime problem.

Last week, 21 people were shot in the western end of the island with several of the shootings attributed to the deadly lottery scamming scheme. Since then, there have been growing calls for Commissioner of Police Dr Carl Williams to be sacked.

“We are… calling on the prime minister to reshuffle the Cabinet and that the current minister of national security be removed and we’re calling for a new minister of national security who will be able to, at the very least, give the Jamaican people some level of reassurance that the Government is acting in view of the surge in criminal activities,” PNPYO President Andrae Blair said during a press conference at the PNP headquarters in St Andrew yesterday.

Blair, while calling for the sacking of the minister, insisted that he provides a short-term plan to combat the increase in crime across the island.

“We’re not just stopping there. If and when that new minister is appointed, or, if it is that the prime minister insists on sticking with this current minister, who we don’t believe is competent in the post, at least by the end of this week we would want to hear a short-term crime plan and a short-term crime strategy as to what they are going to do to seek to reduce the upsurge that is currently happening,” said Blair.

At the same time, the PNPYO president recommended that the Government enact “emergency legislation to provide increased levels of financing to the security forces where they can employ greater level of saturation policing in the hotspot areas, primarily in western Jamaica”.

Blair said while that is not a long-term strategy, the organisation believes that it is important in the immediate term in order to arrest the situation and get it under control.

Said Blair: “…We believe fundamentally that the issues related to crime and violence in Jamaicawill not be solved through policing only… As we have said before, our call is for the resignation of the minister of national security [and] not for the resignation of the commissioner.

“We believe that the calls coming for the resignation of the commissioner are to deflect from the incompetence and lack of direction of the minister. …The buck stops with the minister so it is the minister who has ultimate responsibility,” he added.

— Kimone Francis