Gov’t Committed to Containing Crime to Achieve Key Targets

Minister of Finance and the Public Service, Hon. Audley Shaw, has said that Government will be placing increased emphasis on containing crime, noting that efforts at social and economic reform will come to naught unless the monster of crime is brought under control.
“None of what we are planning is going to be successful unless we bring the monster of crime under control in this country. If we don’t deal with the monster of crime as a country, our potential is going to be continually compromised,” he stated.
“We believe that as a collective Cabinet, that it is within our power and within the necessity of good governance that we bring crime under control. It is going to be done,” Mr. Shaw declared as he addressed the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica’s (PSOJ) Chairman’s Forum held yesterday (October 13) at the Rose Hall Resort and Spa in Montego Bay St. James.
The Finance Minister told the business leaders that the Government is “extremely concerned” about the country’s spiraling crime rate, especially the high incidence of murders in the second city and some “harsh decisions” will have to be made in dealing with the problem.
He noted, however, that the nature and character of crime, makes it not just the problem of Government, “but the problem of we, the people, so we need the support and co-operation of everybody in the process”.
Citing a major case of fraud in the Ministry’s tax department, Mr. Shaw stated that the problem of crime in Jamaica is pervasive, affecting every sector of the society.
“We are dealing with something that is culturally systemic and is becoming like an invasive destructive virus that is running through the main frame of the Jamaican economy and we are going to have to work together to deal with this corruption and to deal with the corrosiveness and destructiveness.
“The corruption is far and wide and is such that unless we grab a hold of it together, then we are going to compromise the integrity of a democratic society, in which we place so much confidence and in which we are so proud.
“Together, we can get this (monster) out because together, we are united and stronger than that monster of crime. I believe that working together, we can make Jamaica the place of peace and prosperity and a place of bright future for our children,” Minister Shaw stated.