The St Lucia government today called for a bipartisan approach to dealing with the crime situation in the country.
In a statement to Parliament, Prime Minister Stephenson King said that there will be a joint sitting of parliament later this month allowing legislators an opportunity to debate the issue. King said that St Lucia has been under siege from criminal elements for over a decade and the time has come to take “firm and decisive action”.
He said that since1998 there has been an annual increase in the number of homicides and last year, the figure reached 48. “So that for more than a decade our country has been under siege by criminals, let us therefore take decisive and coherent measures to fight the drug activity, to fight the gang violence, to flight the murders, to stop the destruction of our families, and to return our country to serenity.”
“Let us stop the blame game and commit ourselves to working together to fight the scourge of crime that confronts us all,” he added. King said government has hammered out a comprehensive national crime fighting strategy which he will unveil during the special joint sitting of the parliament.
“The un-escapable truth is that despite our respective efforts thus far crime continues to be the country’s number one problem and will continue to be as long as we continue to fight each other rather than combine our efforts against crime. He said that the government strategy will entail the engagement and coordination of the resources of government, families, civil society, the private sector, political parties and other stakeholders, adding that the idea was not to claim accolades for any single grouping. (CMC)
