Prime Minister Andrew Holness has pointed to the frightening ramifications if a community established by a criminal organisation were allowed to stand.

He was referring to the capture and fraudulent sale of government-owned lands in the Greater Bernard Lodge area of Portmore, St Catherine that is earmarked for the development of Jamaica’s first smart city. The area in question is in close proximity to the community of Clifton and was the scene of a demolition exercise last week Thursday which saw 10 unfinished structures being torn down.

“This matter had to be brought to the Security Council and the Central Government had to deal with it because public officers were afraid of losing their lives,”Holness stated as he addressed the House of Representatives on Tuesday.

“If this scam to illegally establish a sub-division were allowed to stand, it would have led to a massive land grab in the area. It would have facilitated the enrichment of a criminal network (and) it would have displaced farmers,” Holness said.

“Worse than that, we would have seen the establishment of a community by a criminal group. That is the worst thing; that is a threat to the sovereignty of the Jamaican state. If we can’t see this we are in problems, if we as Jamaicans don’t put aside these issues about poverty and access to land and look at this security threat,” he added.

The prime minister then pointed to the situation in Haiti where gangs are running rampant while bringing the impoverished nation to a standstill. He argued that these things happen when criminal enterprises take over property that they don’t own and move to control areas.

“I could never allow that to stand,” Holness declared while pointing out that everyone who got land on the Bernard Lodge property “would have gotten it by virtue of a criminal organisation assigning it to them”.

“And what would that say about the sovereignty of the Jamaican state, about the rule of law? To whom would the people in that settlement look to for law and order? How would they get all the amenities and the services,” the prime minister asked rhetorically.

He cited that the bigger problem was that the criminals could move to corrupt state officials to obtain land titles or otherwise try to influence the political directorate to get on board.

“That is how societies and states breakdown,” Holness said.