National Crises & Solving Crimes Highlight The Need For NIDS

THE PNP’s CONTINUED PROPENSITY TO BE A STUMBLING BLOCK TO PROGRESS IS COSTING JAMAICA DEARLY.

Crises can be tremen­dous­ly harm­ful, but despite the fall­out from them, they offer great oppor­tu­ni­ties for rebirth and the cre­ation of new and inno­v­a­tive oppor­tu­ni­ties for the future.
If we are to become a first world coun­try we must have an idea who our cit­i­zens are. The last debate about a nation­al data­base of our cit­i­zens was defeat­ed because one polit­i­cal par­ty demo­nized the mea­sure, result­ing in unin­formed con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries and hys­te­ria sur­round­ing the issue.
It is not the first time that the PNP had done harm to our coun­try in ways that are deeply con­se­quen­tial and long-lasting.

The 22-years of absolute­ly failed PNP lead­er­ship has set Jamaica back in ways that are incal­cu­la­ble. We could go fur­ther back and exam­ine the Manley régime’s dam­age to the coun­try from 1972 to 1980 and if we are hon­est with our­selves we will agree that this polit­i­cal par­ty has been more harm than it is worth.
The anti-NIDS’ dem­a­goguery by the PNP will now have con­se­quences as the gov­ern­ment bat­tle this COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. We sim­ply do not know who our cit­i­zens are, and so even if test­ed we will have no real idea whether we are treat­ing the same peo­ple over and over as many peo­ple do not have prop­er iden­ti­fi­ca­tion. But that is hard­ly the issue, you can­not account for what you do not know.
In addi­tion to that, the leader of the oppo­si­tion Peter Phillips’s rev­e­la­tion that he approached the Cubans and tried to source a drug to fight the virus should give Jamaicans anoth­er win­dow into the soul of Peter Phillips.

It is not the first time that Peter Phillips has betrayed the Government & peo­ple of Jamaica. He even betrayed the gov­ern­ment of his own par­ty, of which he was a cab­i­net min­is­ter, when he went behind Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller and her cab­i­net’s back, and signed a secret MOU as min­is­ter of nation­al secu­ri­ty with the United States Government.
Anyone with the most basic under­stand­ing of the work­ings of the American Government knows that noth­ing like that could have occurred in the United States.
Testifying before a Commission, Phillips argued that he did not need Cabinet’s approval to sign the secret mem­o­ran­da that only came to the pub­lic’s atten­tion dur­ing the Tivoli com­mis­sion of inquiry.
In response to claims that his actions placed the con­sti­tu­tion­al rights of Jamaicans in deep jeop­ardy, Phillips said the agree­ments only tar­get­ed the com­mu­ni­ca­tion of Jamaicans where there is a threat to nation­al secu­ri­ty and under pre­scribed con­di­tions.
My per­son­al feel­ings on whether his sign­ing of the mem­o­ran­da helped or hurt Jamaicans are rather agnos­tic.
Where I had a prob­lem with Peter Phillips’s actions, was the secret ways in which he did it with­out the approval of the cab­i­net, not whether it was done at all.
It is exact­ly Phillip’s Modus operan­di, and we saw that in the way in which he con­fessed to hav­ing approached the Cubans out­side the pro­to­cols of gov­ern­ment and was right­ly rebuffed.

Actions have con­se­quences, Opposition par­ties are not sup­posed to tor­pe­do the pos­i­tive things the gov­ern­ing par­ty does out of rapa­cious desires to gain pow­er.
But that is exact­ly what Peter Phillips & the PNP are doing, even at a time when the nation needs a total coa­lesc­ing around the com­mon good.
The Peter Phillips led PNP just scut­tled a deal that would have seen a sub­stan­tial invest­ment project in Ocho Rios, by Palace Resorts a Mexican invest­ment com­pa­ny.
The police have a per­son of inter­est in the dis­ap­pear­ance of UWI stu­dent Jasmine Deen, if the coun­try had a nation­al data­base of its cit­i­zens there would hard­ly be a need for them to be beg­ging for cit­i­zens to step for­ward to help in iden­ti­fy­ing the sus­pect.
These are crit­i­cal things that can be a mat­ter of life and death. It is time for the People’s National Party to stop play­ing cheap polit­i­cal games with our coun­try in order to gain pow­er.
Subverting the efforts of the gov­ern­ment as it strug­gles to keep the coun­try safe is not patri­ot­ic, it is treasonous.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Jamaican police Detective cor­po­ral, busi­ness­man, researcher, and blog­ger. 
He is a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog chatt​-​a​-box​.com. 
He’s also a con­trib­u­tor to sev­er­al web­sites.
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