KINGSTON, Jamaica- The People’s National Party (PNP) says Prime Minister Andrew Holness’ claim that there has been an agreement with the Opposition that where the murder rate was 32 per 100,000, then the use of states of emergency (SOEs) would be considered reasonable and justified, is false.  

Calling the prime minister’s statement a blatant lie to the public, in a press release shortly after Holness’ press briefing announcing the Zone of Special Operation (ZOSO) in Parade Gardens, Kingston, the PNP said, “The Government continues gaslighting the public on this issue even though the prime minister and his ministers [Horace Chang and Matthew Samuda] know it to be false.”

Adding that as recently as November 2021, this issue was raised in a Crime Monitoring and Oversight Committee (CMOC) emailed dialogue where it was asserted that a statement in the Crime Consensus document meant that the Opposition agreed to the use of SOEs, PNP Senator Peter Bunting said, “As a member of CMOC, and as Opposition Spokesman on National Security, I responded [that] this statement conflates the use of the military with the declaration of an SOE. This is a perpetuation of a falsehood, and the Opposition wishes to distance itself from any such statement proposed to be made by the CMOC, and would ask that this position be made clear in the release [by CMOC].”

Bunting also stated that the Chairman of CMOC, Lloyd Distant clarified the issue by saying, “The consensus explicitly spoke to use of the military, as permitted by law, because we did not have fulsome agreement from all the parties on the specific use of the SOE’s. The phrase ‘permitted by law’ recognised that it is Parliament’s responsibility to determine what would be lawful and best in each instance – the stakeholders did not seek to direct or dictate on the specifics of SOE’s vs ZOSO’s in any way.” 

Bunting went on to say that the Opposition is willing to cooperate and make constructive recommendations to help the government combat crime.  

“This is most recently evidenced as the Government finally heeded our repeated calls for a ZOSO in Central Kingston this morning. However, it is difficult to effectively cooperate with an administration as insincere and fundamentally dishonest as this Holness- led JLP [Jamaica Labour Party] administration is proving itself to be,” he said.