And while Barrow isn't too wary of watching his words, he also used the conference to take jabs - once again - at the Police Minister. Yesterday in the police's press conference, Home Affairs Minister Kareem Musa called the opposition opportunistic, and explained that they had 13 years to get it right but didn't. And today Barrow reiterated that he believes Minister Kareem Musa and the ComPol need to demit office, rather than repeating the same blame game.
Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs
"It is all about opportunism for the opposition and it all starts off wonderfully the cooperation is great. But when something goes wrong, they are quick to jump at you and criticize you, instead of offering you solutions. And so, they had 13 years in government, and you need to look at those statistics, and ask if that's who I need to lean on, as advice. if it is that they are ready to offer genuine support, I will not turn my back on them, but I know what they are about, it's opportunism, it's getting in there, it's seeing what our plans are and then going out there and attacking it."
Shyne Barrow, Leader of the Opposition
"I think they should go, I know the prime minister says he examines his cabinet annually and I don't think anyone would disagree that Minister Musa has failed at Minister of Police, again to argue that well last year, we had ten more murders… we are not safe as a society, and again it starts at the top. When a corporal, and again the reports that I have, killed Micheal Williams, and the commissioner agrees that it's the same perpetrator, allegedly, and then goes back to execute an entire family. Thank the mercy of God that those two women survived and that child survived. But there's a problem in our country and for two years we've been hearing about multi sectorial, what is the solution? What is the solution to get the guns off the street? Minister Musa said, we know who the bad men are, we know the murders before they happen, why hasn't he been able to execute his expertise on crime fighting?"
"So yes, I do believe that the ComPol should go off into politics, I hear he wants to be a politician, and the Minister of Police should focus on New Growth."
Courtney Menzies:
"But so do you believe that the previous Minister of Police also failed, along that same line? When Kareem was asked whether or not he should partner with the opposition, he said they don't want to lean on the opposition because the opposition had 13 years and didn't make any strides either."
Shyne Barrow, Leader of the Opposition
"That's the broken record that he sings and his colleagues sing on every single issue, it's not going to work, people voted out the UDP because they did fail, okay, we accept that. I was not a member of that Cabinet, I was not an area representative, so that is not my problem. My problem is calling out the government, holding them accountable, pushing them to the standards that we expect as a nation, it's not too much to ask that people who pretend to have the expertise to deliver on societal problems actually deliver, it's not too much to ask."
