MoBay Chamber welcomes SOE, but wants long-term crime solution from leaders

WESTERN BUREAU:

The Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MBCCI) is calling for Jamaica’s leaders to come together and create a long-term solution to deal with the nation’s crime monster, even as it welcomes the state of public emergency (SOE) which has been declared in St James.

MBCCI President Oral Heaven made the call on Wednesday evening while speaking with journalists at the Caribbean Sustainable Cities Conference 2022, held at the Hilton Rose Hall Resort in Montego Bay.

“Our clients support the use of the SOE as an interim measure. We see what is happening with crime in our parish, and by extension in our country, as over 1,300 murders is something to be concerned about. We know, however, that this is a short-term measure, so we are looking to the authorities to put medium- to long-term measures in place that will really reduce or curtail this monster, and something that is sustainable in reducing crime,” said Heaven.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Andrew Holness announced that SOEs would be imposed in St James, Hanover, Westmoreland, Clarendon, St Catherine, and parts of the Corporate Area in Kingston and St Andrew. That announcement came on the heels of an increase in criminal activity, to include 1,360 murders having been recorded in Jamaica up to November 13 this year, a 6.8 per cent increase in murders over 2021.

According to Heaven, while the MBCCI’s members will support the current SOE if the security forces decide to extend it past the initial 14-day period, other crime-fighting measures should be taken into consideration as well.

“It is not about the SOE only, as there are other arsenals that we can use, so we are encouraging the leaders to use those measures to help to fight crime and also to reduce and sustain that reduction in crime. There are some social transformation programmes that are in place, and we see some happening in St James; the public order reset [Operation Restore Paradise] is powerful because you are looking at social intervention that will take away idle hands and move them into something substantial,” Heaven explained.

“If after 14 days the Jamaica Defence Force and the Jamaica Constabulary Force see where it is needed for an extension [of the SOE], the business community will call on the Government and Opposition to work together. Crime-fighting is not about politics, and it is not about one party or the other; it is about us Jamaicans coming together to fight this monster,” Heaven added.

The present SOE in St James is the third one to have been imposed in the parish, following one in 2018 and another in 2021.

Ironically, one day after the SOEs were announced, six persons were attacked and shot by gunmen at a shop in Norwood, St James, which has been under a zone of special operations (ZOSO). Two men, 31-year-old shopkeeper Delano Christie and 26-year-old Jordain Brown, were killed in the attack, while the other four persons, including a nine-month-old child, were left nursing gunshot wounds.