And the Minister of Home Affairs, Kareem Musa, rose to first explain the purpose of the bill, but then soon trained his sights on Barrow. He told the Opposition Leader that he should consider his own leadership, since his party isn't rushing to rally behind him. In fact, he even pointed out that former UDP Port Loyola Standard Bearer, Phillip Willoughby, was sitting on the government's side of the gallery, and that it seemed the party was more interested in the Barrow boycott.
Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs
"All that we're doing at this very moment is formalizing and enshrining in our legislation this extremely important arm, this extremely important body which is the National Security Council which like I said has been around form the 90's. And so there's nothing new, there's no new budget that's being created, it is merely giving teeth to this very important arm and on behalf of the Ministry of Home Affairs, we fully support this bill."
"He spoke about leadership, but the cute thing about leadership and being a leader is that you have to have somebody that follows you, somebody that believes in your vision, somebody, anybody at all, in the UDP to believe in what you stand for. Madam Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition is properly despised within his own party. Who would have ever thought Yellowman would have turned on the Leader of the Opposition? Would would have ever thought that the mob, Juliet Thimbriel, would have turned on the Leader of the Opposition? All the Fat Joe parties, all the P Diddy parties, DJ Khaled's, none of that ever amounted to anything because he is a "wotless" leader. Madam Speaker, my brother, Phillip Willoughby is sitting right up there. The Leader of the Opposition turned the Lord of the Rings, he want back the ring. I can't believe that he has the nerve of leadership when absolutely no one, not event he member for Collet, I'm surprised you're here and you're not part of the official boycott cause the only boycott is that they're cutting that boy. Nobody's supporting him. And so it is very strange that he would even want to venture down a discussion on leadership when in fact he has no followers at all."
And while Barrow also criticized Musa for what he believes is a misrepresentation of crime stats, the Minister said that it's impossible to hide since the police aren't the only ones who keep track.
Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs
"I don't invent statistics, statistics are in black and white, you can cook those books. Jules Vasquez records every single murder, even the ones that are self-defense he records as murder and so the black and white does not lie. When the United Democratic Party was in power we were ranked by insight crime, not by Kareem Musa or ComPol Williams, oh the leader seems to have some fetish or obsession with, we were ranked under the UDP, the third most deadly country in this region, in Latin America. So where he is coming about, this is unparalell crime? We are seeing and witnessing 148 murders in 2012, every year it was averaging between 130 to 140 murders. So what is it that he is seeing that nobody else is seeing? In 2022 we came out of that top ten list under this administration. We went from third to eleventh. And in 2023, we went from eleventh to fourteenth of this region deadliest countries, 14th. So I don't know where the Leader of the Opposition is getting his information from, obviously this is his grand standing moment because he always latches on to crime but Madam Speaker, the facts and the black and white does not lie."
