Brathwaite: PM, AG too quiet on crime

STOP looking back!

That’s the advice given by former Attorney General Adriel Brathwaite to Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley as he expressed concern about the high level of crime in the country and the Prime Minister blaming the former administration for not dealing with the crime situation while in power.

He was speaking during a mass meeting on Sunday night in Newbury, St. George in support of Democratic Labour Party (DLP) candidate for St. George North, Floyd Reifer, where he told the Prime Minister, “We are more concerned about what you are going to do to arrest the criminal elements in this country.

“We are still seeing more and more gun-related crime in this country. Up to last night (Saturday) – and we see it almost daily on our cell phones. It troubles all of us. So rather than look back, Prime Minister, you need to look within your Cabinet and the first thing you should do is to get rid of your ineffective Attorney General.”

Brathwaite charged that neither the Prime Minister nor the current Attorney General have highlighted plans to arrest the growing crime situation. “The only focus has been on the last Attorney General and the last government. But that does not help Barbados.

“That does not help you to feel safe in your homes. That does not help you when you go to the supermarket and then someone will come and hold you up. So I am begging you Prime Minister, stop looking back and try to address the criminal elements in this country. Do it seriously. This Barbados that means so much to all of us, we need to get it back. We need once again for our people to feel safe.”

He told the large crowd at the meeting that the Government has betrayed the people of Barbados. “In 2017 they told you that they had all the answers. They told you that they had all the answers to crime. They had all the answers to our economy. And instead what has happened is, everything has gotten worse.

“They have an excellent PR (public relations) machinery. So you would not believe that Barbadians are worse off today than they were in 2018. We are paying more for water, transportation, fuel ... and I ask Barbadians contin-uously: Are you better off in 2020 than you were in 2018? And the answer is ‘no’. Were you better off in 2019 than you were in 2018 – the answer is ‘no’. The only persons I can say to you that I truly believe have benefited from the policies of this Government is the merchant class.

“Your profits, however, went down. Because even though they bragged about giving a five per cent increase to civil servants, but lo and behold with all the taxes that they did, you are actually in a worse financial situation than you were before the five per cent increase. It was all taken away. So I honestly believe that you have to accept that there has been a betrayal on the part of this Government. What they said they were going to do in 2017, they have not done at all.”

Brathwaite encouraged members of the DLP and Reifer to continue to address the country. “Because we cannot allow what is happening in this country to go unhindered, unabated and unchallenged. We have a responsibility,” he exhorted. (JH)

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