Public Order Must be Taken Seriously – Minister Bartlett

Jamaicans are being urged to take public order seriously, as blatantly disregarding it poses an existential threat to both tourism and the wider community.

Tourism Minister, Hon. Edmund Bartlett, made the appeal while addressing stakeholders in Negril, following the recent unveiling of a new welcome sign in the resort town.

Mr. Bartlett said disregard for public order is currently the greatest threat to the continued growth and development of the tourism sector.

“It concerns us to the point where we have established the destination assurance policy strategy. We are trying to build with you [the resort towns] the destination management, so that we can bring all the partners together… the Municipalities, the police, public health, fire, the churches and community leaders, and all the key players who are involved in enabling the development of an orderly arrangement of our communities,” the Minister said.

“There is also the business of compliance with rules and regulations. We cannot grow and develop if we continue to flout all the orders and flaunt negative and antisocial behaviour the way we have been doing. The murder business must stop. The disruptive behaviour in the communities… the disorderliness where persons want to peddle their wares anywhere… must stop,” Mr. Bartlett emphasised.

The Minister said that in regular consultation with Prime Minister, the Most Hon. Andrew Holness, the consensus is that direct local and foreign investments must coincide with the prioritisation of public order, noting that anything else would be counterproductive and self-defeating.

“We are not going to be known as a society that is unable to manage public order, and as we are already seeing in Montego Bay… the work has started to deal with this problem once and for all,” he noted.

Citing an operation in St. James, dubbed ‘Restoring Paradise’, Mr. Bartlett said tourism entities and other stakeholders have already started working with the security forces to drive “this process of changing the public order.”

He said the Government will continue to invest in upgrading the physical infrastructure in townships to enable the facilitation of merchandising, and marketing of wares.

The Minister added that there will also be investment in training and building persons’ capacity to think, listen, and transform the knowledge and information that they have into material goods that have a value and a price.

“We’re going to invest in social development, so we change the way you think and behave and act. But at the same time, we will do this in law and order and with the mechanics that are necessary to preserve that law, so that the growth that we are talking about… will be achieved in a space of public order,” he said.

Mr. Bartlett said he is optimistic of a national buy-in to the business of public order, noting that “the success that we are seeing in Montego Bay where residents, business interests and other stakeholders have joined in unison with the security forces to tackle illegal activities on the streets, can be used as a template right across the island.”