By Floyd French
Observer Reporter
(Basseterre, St. Kitts) – Leader of the People’s Action Movement, Mr. Lindsay Grant, is still awaiting a response to his letter from the Federation’s Prime Minister, Hon. Dr. Denzil Douglas.
Mr. Grant formally requested the Prime Minister to meet with him and other stakeholders to discuss strategies to curb crime, especially murder and other violent crimes. The letter, dated April 21, came three days after two murders, which amounted in the Federation’s eight murder to date.
According to Mr. Grant, the current calm interval in murders and shootings seem to create an air of complacency on the part of the government.
“I think if we are honest with ourselves what happens is that when there is an upsurge in any given month, let us say, the government comes out and says something and then right now we seem to have a little lull so everybody is quiet,” he said.
The month of April was the worst month in the murder statistics so far. Alphonso Richards was stabbed to death on April 4. A week later on April 12 Gregory Zakers body was found at Black Rocks. Then, one week after on April 18 Charles Matthew was gunned down in broad daylight and Tau Gowon was stabbed to death that evening.
The Prime Minister responded to the public outcry over the escalation in murders and said, at a press conference on April 22, there was a need to find solutions to crime and its impact.
Mr. Grant believes a national dialogue between the Government, opposition political parties, business community and social organisations would offer practical solutions to mitigate the social, economic, religious and financial impact of crime that the Prime Minister stressed in his comments.
“Really and truly what it needs is a concerted effort by all stakeholders to deal with the matter not just when two persons die in a week or something of that nature. So I suspect nothing will happen from the Government’s side until something blows again, which is unfortunate, but we [PAM] will continue to do what we need to do to dialogue with the community in terms of improving what we consider to be an abysmal crime problem,” said Mr. Grant.
