Government has no crime plan: Panday

Opposition leader Basdeo Panday says Minister of National Security Martin Joseph is a man without a plan. His statement comes as the number of murders for the year climbed to 300.

“The country knows that Minister Joseph has no clue or plan for dealing with crime and that is why they have no confidence in him and they want him to go," Panday said in a media release Friday.

"That is the same reason why criminal activities such as the drug trade, criminal gangs, murders and robberies continue to rise. It is because the criminals know that the Minister has no plan for catching them and making them pay for their crimes.”

Panday's comments are in response to the latest plea for “patience” and “understanding” from Joseph, which he made Thursday while at the same time praising the acting police commissioner.

Read the story: 297 murders; minister has full confidence in police chief

Panday said, “After seven years in office and with no improvement in the crime situation, the Minister continues to talk about long term timelines. What the public needs is immediate solutions to the immediate problems while medium and long term measures are put in place to deal with the medium and long term.

“Minister Joseph does not have a crime plan and never had a crime plan. He has been feeling his way around like a blind man at the expense of the lives of our citizens."

Commenting on Joseph reference to the prime minister's statement that he will keep trying plan after plan until something works, Panday said it is that the government doesn't know what it is doing. He said it has tried everything from Anaconda to Zero Tolerance and each has failed.

He concluded that the government is not serious when it says it is committed to ensuring public safety especially "when the police service is starved for resources and incompetent persons continue to hold the position of Minister of National Security".

He said the public has a right to ask whose interest is served by constantly keeping "incompetent ministers in such as critical office as the Minister of National Security."?