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Holness’ 2017 Message…

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Everyone deserves the ben­e­fit of the doubt, though not a fan of politi­cians, this writer and this medi­um believes that the Prime Minister , though late in this recog­ni­tion, deserves a chance to make good.
The prime min­is­ter naive­ly believed that there could be sig­nif­i­cant or mea­sur­able growth in an atmos­phere of crime and mayhem.
This medi­um has over the years cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly point­ed out to both the for­mer Administration and and to this new one, that crime is the sin­gle largest imped­i­ment to growth and pros­per­i­ty on the Island.

With mur­ders and oth­er seri­ous crimes on the rise , and the com­mis­sion­er of police out of answers and step­ping down, Holness now seem to have had a come-to-jesus-moment.
To the prime min­is­ter’s sense of recog­ni­tion that there is a prob­lem I say “duh” .
What took you so long to rec­og­nize that the killing of almost two thou­sand Jamaicans each year is untenable.
What took you so long to rec­og­nize that this was not get­ting better?

This crime sit­u­a­tion can­not, and will not be fixed by throw­ing more bod­ies at it . It cer­tain­ly will not be fixed by chang­ing the com­mis­sion­er , even though there was no jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for Carl Williams’ con­tin­ued tenure.
The prime min­is­ter allud­ed to what he saw as a shift in the atti­tude of Jamaicans toward crime.
I find it curi­ous , because what I believe I am hear­ing is that the leader of the nation was wait­ing to hear peo­ple say they have had enough of the killings.

Is that not lead­ing from behind?
Leaders do not spit on their fin­ger and place it in the wind to decide what direc­tion to take.
Leaders lead because it’s the right thing to do. Leaders make deci­sions and take action regard­less of pop­u­lar per­cep­tions and opinions.
There is noth­ing good in the deaths of hun­dreds of peo­ple each year. There is noth­ing defen­si­ble about the rape and abuse of inno­cent women girls and boys.
Taking deci­sive action against depraved rapist and killers does not require a nation­al shift in per­cep­tions of a nation. It requires lead­er­ship from those elect­ed to lead.