This sea­son of thanks­giv­ing is the per­fect time for all of us to ac­knowl­edge and thank the men and women who put their lives on the line on a dai­ly ba­sis to keep us safe from the coun­try's crim­i­nal el­e­ment, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has said.

Row­ley made the state­ment in this year's mes­sage to the na­tion for Christ­mas Day.

"Much like pre­vi­ous years, the is­sues as­so­ci­at­ed with ad­dress­ing crime and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty have re­mained in the fore­front. The com­plex­i­ty of these is­sues is such that no one ac­tion would to­tal­ly re­verse the scourge but this Gov­ern­ment is stead­fast in its re­solve to bring about the sta­bil­i­ty and se­cu­ri­ty that the peo­ple of this na­tion de­serve," Row­ley stat­ed.

So far this year 485 mur­ders have been record­ed.

"Every re­source and av­enue that is avail­able to us will be ex­plored and uti­lized in the pur­suit of these na­tion­al ob­jec­tives. In this sea­son of thanks­giv­ing, it is an op­por­tune time for each and every one of us ac­knowl­edge and thank those men and women who on a dai­ly ba­sis put their lives on the line to keep us safe from the harm that could most cer­tain­ly over­come us from the crim­i­nal el­e­ment which re­side in our coun­try. We must al­so thank the fam­i­lies who sup­port and sus­tain as we keep them al­ways in our prayers," he said.

Row­ley said while he un­der­stands that many peo­ple in the coun­try are fac­ing chal­lenges of one kind or an­oth­er, he is con­fi­dent that strate­gies im­ple­ment­ed by the Gov­ern­ment will cause "im­prove­ment in the fun­da­men­tal ar­eas of our econ­o­my as well as oth­er ar­eas of na­tion­al life".

"Al­though we have in­deed ex­pe­ri­enced many dif­fi­cul­ties as a na­tion, there are many rea­sons for us to be op­ti­mistic about our fu­ture," he said.

Row­ley al­so thanked cit­i­zens for com­ing to the aid of re­gion­al neigh­bours that were rav­aged by hur­ri­canes this year.