BELLEFIELD, Manchester — The Opposition People’s National Party (PNP) on Sunday scolded the Government for its management of crime and the recently concluded public sector compensation review, and urged supporters to prepare for general elections.

Opposition spokesman on finance Julian Robinson, General Secretary Dr Dayton Campbell, and former Minister of National Security Senator Peter Bunting fired salvos at the Administration during PNP’s Bellefield divisional conference at Bellefield High School.

Robinson called on the Government to “reset the compensation review”.

“We have just gone through a compensation review where the people at the bottom got good increases, deservingly so, and I have heard that the people at the top are also going to get good increases, but the vast majority of people in the middle — and that would represent the majority of civil servants — will probably end up worse off,” said Robinson.

“It can’t be right that a teacher that has spent 20, 30 years in the classroom end up worse off than a teacher who just start yesterday because we all know [that] whether you have the same academic qualifications, what differentiates a teacher is experience. It can’t be that travelling officers who have to go out in the field to do their job are worse off now than they were before. So, I am calling on the Government, ‘We need a reset with the compensation review. We need to sit down with the unions,’ ” added Robinson.

He claimed that unions representing public sector workers are complaining about issues with the review.

“Many of the same unions who last year ran out quick and sign, they are the ones now saying ‘We never know seh the increment that [we] used to get every year tek weh from we,’ ” he said.

Robinson said the Opposition supported the compensation review in principle.

“All along we said we needed transparency and equity. We said, ‘You need to tell people what they were going to get. It can’t be that on the appointed day people get in their account and they don’t know what they [are getting]; and worse, it can’t be that every month some people a get their pay late,’ ” he said.

Dr Campbell told PNP supporters to be prepared for the next general election as he claimed the Government is “out of touch” with the people.

“They have reduced the spending on the people… The people are suffering, and no amount of [public relations] — whether you want to use drone, this that flashy camera — no amount of PR can convince a hungry man seh him nuh hungry. I am appealing to the members of the [PNP], seeing that this Government is out of touch, seeing that this Government don’t care about the welfare of the people, let us get our house in order and get things ready to reclaim the reins of Government,” he said.

Senator Bunting, while acknowledging the recent reduction in crime, said more focus should be placed on bolstering the police force.

“I don’t grudge him [National Security Minister Dr Horace Chang] on the fact that this year murders have been lower than the previous year. He said it has been the lowest in seven years but I wonder if you realise the significance of seven years; that was the last time the PNP Administration was in office. So, even though he has seen a decline this year, at the rate that murders are going this year it will still be higher than the highest year under the PNP Administration,” said Bunting.

“We are happy and we welcome that there is some improvement but, just to put things in context, it is still higher than the highest year between 2012 and 2015 when we were last in office,” he added.

Reiterating his view that states of emergency are ineffective, Bunting said, “…Notice there has been no real state of emergency. They have two press releases, they don’t even bother with a press conference anymore. They declare it by press release and nobody takes it seriously… so that could not be what is responsible for the reduction, even though they have been persisting with that nonsense for five years previously.”

He said bolstering the police force is responsible for the reduction in crime.

“What we are beginning to see now is the benefit of the additional police personnel in the divisions that generate most of the violent crimes, and what they need to do is focus on that,” said Bunting.