KINGSTON, Jamaica— Jamaica will end 2023 at close to 1,400 murders if the current rate of homicides continues, according to Opposition Spokesman on National Security, Peter Bunting.

The former Minister of National Security made the prediction on Wednesday during a People’s National Party (PNP) press conference at the party’s Old Hope Road headquarters in St Andrew.

“This is 250 murders above the average level in the previous PNP administration (2012-2016),” Bunting said.

He charged that things being done by the Andrew Holness-led administration, such as the routine use of states of emergency (SOEs) that have been ruled unconstitutional by the courts, the refusal to table reports from public bodies in the Parliament, and the decision to increase the age at which the Director of Public Prosecutions should retire are designed to distract Jamaicans from the real crime figures.

“A lot of what we see here now is really attempts to divert the attention of the citizens from the failed performance of this administration in dealing with key issues, important issues to the people of Jamaica, such as their safety and security,” Bunting remarked.

He outlined that the murder rates across several parishes show that “nationally, we’re going at a rate of about 50 murders per 100,000 population, which puts us at the top of the global rankings …where we continue to be among the highest in the hemisphere and in the world”.

Bunting said that up to July 22, St James was going at a rate of 109 murders per 100,000; Hanover was at 98; Westmoreland 86; and Kingston and St Andrew 60. He noted that these parishes were significantly above the already high national rate.

“There’s a crisis in terms of safety and security and there’s a crisis in terms of normal, professional policing. The government has used the serial and routine use of states of emergency as an attempt to PR crime fighting, as an attempt to convince the population that they’re doing something because the normal constitutionally available means have failed,” Bunting declared.

He said all that they have now done is show that the measures they have resorted to have been proven to be “completely ineffective”.

The global average homicide rate is around six per 100,000. For the Latin American and Caribbean region it is roughly 20 per 100,000, more than three times the global average.

Meanwhile, Bunting said Jamaicans must now see through the failures of the government “and demand accountability and performance from an administration that is spending the most in history on national security”.

“We would love to see a performance audit of capital expenditures of the Ministry of National Security. I can tell you that it would make the National Works Agency’s (cost) overruns of $10 billion pale in comparison to the money that’s being wasted at the Ministry of National Security,” Bunting asserted.