MPs urged to face gang problems in districts

POLITICIANS are either “getting assistance” to keep quiet about gang activities in their constituencies, or they just don’t care, says Roger Husbands.Speaking yesterday during a quarterly meeting for the Barbados Youth Development Council, chairman Husbands blasted politicians in some constituencies for ignoring what he called “foolishness”, noting that if gang and drug-related activities were in a constituency, then the Member of Parliament for that area should know about them.“My issue is this,if I am running a constituency . . . which is known for drug activities and drug lords and all kinds of things, you mean to tell mea politician who say they are in that area does not know that gangs are in there?” he queried.Husbands said politicians needed to be out more in their constituencies to see what was taking place and address the problems.“. . . We elect people, so when problems take place in our community, the only persons that we could blame are us because we put people there hoping they would deal with the problems; and they just there doing nothing for the community,” he said.He continued: “We need to get a group of young people or politicians in this nation today that will stand up for righteousness and will stand up for the young people and take some of those drug lords that [are] within their communities out of that area to save the young people in there,” he said.Human resources management consultant Andre Worrell said people needed to stop “moaning and groaning” over whether gangs existedin Barbados.“We need some way  of infiltrating those gangs to see if we can geta positive turn around because I like to work on changing the situation, not to mourn and groan about these things happening. We need to start studying these different gangs. “We need to start creating some positive alternatives and make them just as attractive, interesting and just as developmental and provide the same sortof feeling of belonging that these people are looking for,” Worrell said.