AN­GE­LO JE­DIDI­AH

The Leader of the Op­po­si­tion, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar SC MP, says she does not be­lieve crime is a pub­lic health emer­gency.

She was speak­ing to re­porters at the “Re­gion­al Sym­po­sium: Vi­o­lence as a Pub­lic Health Is­sue – the Crime Chal­lenge” cur­rent­ly tak­ing place at the Hy­att Re­gency.

Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar, along with mem­bers of the Op­po­si­tion, ex­it­ed the fo­rum short­ly af­ter the Prime Min­is­ter's open­ing re­marks at day one of the Sym­po­sium. The Op­po­si­tion mem­bers said they were on­ly in­vit­ed to at­tend the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny.

“It is not a pub­lic health is­sue, but I agree it caus­es pub­lic health is­sues," the Op­po­si­tion Leader told Guardian Me­dia.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley ad­dressed sev­er­al of the Op­po­si­tion's crit­i­cisms in his Wel­come Ad­dress, say­ing the crime sit­u­a­tion is not de­pen­dent on who is the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter.

But Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­tin­ued her calls for Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds to re­sign.

“I still call for him to go. You can't keep mak­ing the same mis­takes every day, ex­pect­ing things to change. It is very clear Min­is­ter Hinds can­not do the job, but it is just not Hinds—it is the en­tire Gov­ern­ment. To­day shows hope­less­ness," she said.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader said so far, she is not im­pressed with the out­lined dis­cus­sions for the Sym­po­sium. How­ev­er, she said that she is hop­ing there will be an ac­tion plan out­lined to ad­here to by the end of the two-day event.

“Peo­ple are mor­tal­ly afraid. Yes, CARI­COM can help us, but we have unique is­sues,” she said,

“Let’s re­move this in­com­pe­tent and wicked gov­ern­ment and let’s move for­ward and take our coun­try for­ward.”