The Opposition People’s National Party (PNP) has given the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Government 72 hours to rescind the appointment of Dennis Chung as chief technical director of the Financial Investigations Division (FID), or risk “actions across the country”.

The warning was issued by PNP General Secretary, Dr Dayton Campbell, during a press conference at the party’s Old Hope Road headquarters in St Andrew Thursday afternoon.

“We are giving this government 72 hours to rescind this appointment and if they do not rescind it there will be actions all over Jamaica,” Campbell stated.

When asked later if he was speaking specifically about demonstrations, a coy Campbell said: “I do not have that word in my vocabulary, I said no such thing.

“The point I’m making and I’m being very strident with the point I’m making, is that we’re taking back our country from the clutches of despair. We’re taking back our country from those who have taken us down a path that we have become unrecognisable as to who we are, what we stand for, the value systems that we have,” he added.

“At no time in the People’s National Party could we have the leader of the party who’s under investigation and continues to remain as the leader of the party. It could not happen. For you to have the prime minister seeking to strike down the very law that speaks to illicit enrichment, that could not happen [in the PNP] and it should not be happening in Jamaica,” Campbell continued.

Insisting that Chung’s appointment is “highly inappropriate”, Campbell said “If they do not act, we’re going to act and the people of this country, time has come for them to act”.

He asserted that “The prime minister is hiding and doing all sorts of other things, [he] might as well call the election and let the people decide if they want to continue with this level of corruption in high places”.

Opposition Leader Mark Golding and party spokesmen Julian Robinson, Donna Scott-Mottley and Peter Bunting all spoke about the inappropriateness of Chung’s appointment.

They insisted that he was a “biased and unfit” candidate who lacks the requisite qualifications while pointing out that he has, on several occasions, publicly come to the defence of the prime minister in the wake of damning findings against him by the Integrity Commission in its illicit enrichment probe of the head of government.