Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves says that there is no basis for the claims made on billboard erected by the main opposition the New Democratic Party (NDP).
The NDP’s billboard, displays last year’s homicide count of 52 while claiming that crime in St. Vincent and the Grenadines is out of control.
However, the Prime Minister, during his recent appearance on WE FM’s Issue At Hand program challenged this, noting that many persons residing in SVG do not feel unsafe.
“You ask people in St. Vincent and the Grenadines and they tell you that they feel safe. I’ve always said that one murder is one murder too many, and that this issue of the homicides, everybody knows that the origins of this, they are complicated. It relates to family, it relates to the family situation, the community, schooling, influence of the churches, and then of course, are the state institutions as effective as they should be, the law courts, the police, and so forth.
But the police and the law courts come in, in relation to arresting, and detention, and punishment, and the like. But the impulse going to commit the crime comes elsewhere.” Dr. Gonsalves said
Prime Minister Gonsalves says that the billboard was put up to coincide with the arrival of journalists and tourist agencies from around the globe for Sandals Travel Advisor Recognition (STAR) Awards.
However, the NDP’s parliamentary representative for the East Kingstown constituency, Fitzgerald Bramble, on an earlier edition of the Issue At Hand program had denied that, saying that billboard is just part of the New Democratic Party’s varying of their messaging strategy.
