Bunting demands Montague resign
MILE GULLY, Manchester — Former National Security Minister Peter Bunting is demanding the resignation of Cabinet Minister Robert Montague following the reissuing of a gun licence to a St Mary man accused of being a gang member and lotto scammer.
Bunting told a Manchester North Western People’s National Party (PNP) constituency conference on Saturday night that while Montague had not broken the law, he had acted immorally. He should follow the example of former Energy, Science and Technology Minister Andrew Wheatley and resign from the Andrew Holness-led Cabinet, Bunting said.
Wheatley’s departure from the Cabinet two weeks ago came amid fallout from alleged wrongdoing in the management of the oil refinery Petrojam, and other agencies, in the embrace of the then Ministry of Energy, Science and Technology.
“The gentleman (Montague) is manifestly unsuitable to sit in the Cabinet of Jamaica. He has demonstrated poor judgement…,” said Bunting who is Member of Parliament for Manchester Central.
“… Unfortunately because the law gives the minister the authority, what he did was not unlawful, was not illegal, but it is still manifestly unethical… and he must be held accountable for that,” Bunting said.
Last Friday, Montague vigorously defended himself at a press conference in Kingston, insisting that his decision to accept a recommendation by a review board to reinstate the gun licence was correct. The gun licence was first granted, then withdrawn, during the period Bunting was national security minister, prior to the change of Government in February 2016.
Montague, who was switched from the national security portfolio to the Ministry of Transport and Mining earlier this year, told journalists that the unnamed man in question had been previously charged under the lottery scamming legislation. He said the charges were thrown out by the courts because no evidence was ever provided. Furthermore, he said the man “became a national security asset”, providing information which assisted investigations by the Firearm Licensing Authority (FLA).
“The police officer who had charged the person in question was alleged to be corrupt and was separated from the police force. The man, who appealed, subsequently became a national security asset. The information provided by him regarding the FLA (helped to uncover) scandalous issues which were associated with the entity. Proof of these issues were provided by him and actions were taken, including FLA personnel being fired and/or arrested, along with licences of Jamaicans being revoked,” Montague told journalists.
However, in his address in Mile Gully on Saturday night Bunting gave a version of events which he claimed showed Montague had acted unethically.
Bunting said that when the initial application by the St Mary man for a gun licence was made while he was minister of national security, the investigation “didn’t show up anything” and the licence was granted.
“… But when people in the community heard, dem say no man’ and started to write the FLA to say ‘no, no something wrong here; this man couldn’t be getting a licensed firearm’ and the FLA go back and called the police … the police in St Mary, the National Intelligence Bureau, and say go back and check… Then when you hear from the shout, the report is the man is a member of a notorious gang in Annotto Bay, the man is alleged to be a scammer, the man is believed to be in possession of an illegal firearm.
“Of course, when the FLA get this report from the St Mary police and in a letter signed by the assistant commissioner of police in charge of the National Intelligence Bureau, dem say ‘no, we revoking this licence; no licence for this man’,” Bunting said.
According to him, in 2015 the St Mary man, through his lawyer, appealed the FLA decision in line with legal provisions for a review board to act.
Bunting told Comrades that “the review board (is not a) ‘dibby dibby’ board; it is established in law under the Firearms Act. The membership is prescribed. You must be a retired director of public prosecutions, or a retired Appeal Court or Supreme Court judge, or a retired police officer of the rank of superintendent or above”.
He said the review board looked at the appeal and dismissed it “…no way! This person should not have a firearm”.
According to Bunting, the situation took a turn when the Government changed with the February 2016 Election.
Said he: “The recommendation now goes to the new minister (Montague). Now what does he do? The law provides for the FLA to do an assessment, they say the man is unsuitable; the law provides for the review board, they say the man is unsuitable…. He (Montague) now establishes a new panel, a review panel to review the review board that reviewed the FLA (decision)…”
According to Bunting, “there is no provision in law for this panel. …So, the FLA refuse this alleged scammer and gangster, the review board established in law refuse the firearm licence to this man, then Montague invented a new panel and invented a new term (expression). He described the man as a national security asset… Now tell me something: when the assistant commissioner of police was writing, advising against this man because of his antecedence would he not have known, as the man in charge of the National Intelligence Bureau, if this man was some national security asset”?
Bunting also defended TVJ — which broke the story last week about the granting of the gun licence to the unnamed St Mary man — and the right of the media to expose alleged corruption.
He rejected what he said were suggestions that there should be a “protocol” governing how media report on national security matters.
“There must be no protocol… mash down that lie. Media must expose criminality in government, expose the corruption, expose nepotism, expose cronyism…,” Bunting said.