BOTH the Government and Opposition are expected to sign off on an updated National Crime Consensus by the end of October.

This is at the urging of the Crime Consensus Monitoring and Oversight Committee (CMOC) which is tasked with ensuring the efficacy and efficiency of the programmes agreed through the process of national consensus aimed at achieving sustainable reduction in crime.

The National Consensus on Crime is focused on creating a national programme of initiatives and actions to transform Jamaica to become a safe, secure and investment-friendly society.

Speaking at a meeting of the Rotary Club of Downtown Kingston at the Liguanea Club in New Kingston on Wednesday, CMOC Chairman Lloyd Distant said the body has been re-engaging stakeholders for the past three months to rebuild the 2020 consensus by incorporating short-term initiatives to reduce crime.

“We are identifying a more detailed set of activities to measure; things that we can hold the Government’s feet to the fire to deliver on and for the Opposition to support, as well,” he said.

Distant further explained that the consensus was predicated on a sustainable reduction in crime which is focused on medium- and long-term initiatives.

“This new process is [aimed at] deepening the consensus — bringing in the short-term initiatives that we never had before, because it was all medium and long term; it’s actually rebuilding a consensus, and it is a significant additional component as well as identifying more granular deliverables, key performance indicators (KPIs) and targets,” he said.

Pointing out that the current consensus on crime took stakeholders nine months to complete, Distant said he is hoping to have a new broadened consensus as quickly as possible, having “set a time line of about…a month and a half, two months to try to get there.”

In the meantime, Distant said CMOC has been engaging in a series of consultations with stakeholders including National Security Minister Dr Horace Chang, churches, the trade unions, the private sector, the Women’s Coalition and other groups.

The CMOC chairman added that following Chang’s proposal for the short-term initiatives, the Opposition will then be engaged for its feedback, and by the end of September there should be an agreement.

“So once we have agreement in principle on that, we do another round of our stakeholder groups [meetings],” he said.

“We are re-engaging the partners to ensure that they are signing off on the consensus and we hope that by the end of October, we’ll have a summit, similar to the one that would’ve taken place in August 2020 for all the stakeholders to sign off on [the consensus],” he added.

On August 3, 2020, Prime Minister Andrew Holness, the then leader of the Opposition, Dr Peter Phillips, and 15 primary stakeholder groups signed the National Consensus on Crime Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) which outlined the steps that must be taken for a sustainable reduction in crime, inclusive of milestones and agreements on a monitoring and reporting mechanism.

The consensus consists of seven pillars which the CMOC intends to further expand; and 44 specific deliverables.

CMOC is an independent body bringing together non-partisan stakeholders from the private sector, civil society, academia, and the political directorate. It provides an independent overview of the efficacy and efficiency of the programmes agreed through the process of national consensus and keeps the public engaged on the progress of reducing crime, violence and corruption in Jamaica.