PM Defends Minister Musa and ComPol Williams

John Briceño

Prime Minister John Briceño also weighed in on the opposition’s call for the Minister of Home Affairs and the Commissioner of Police to resign. PM Briceño argues that Minister Musa has been able to do more than the previous administration in fighting crime. As for ComPol Williams, PM Briceño says his legal and policing experience serve as an asset in the P.U.P. Administration’s crime fighting strategy.

Prime Minister John Briceño

“I will repeat again what Mr. Price use to always tell us in Cabinet. Ih seh, when your opponents start to praise you, sit back and think what stupid thing you have done. When you compare what our Minister of Police presently, honorable Kareem Musa, is doing, comparing to what the previous Ministers, including the Chairman of the Party, that big person of a man. It is between night and day. Kareem has been doing an excellent job with the hand given to him. There are many systemic problems we have to address in the Police Department. The Police Department, we know that during the U.D.P. times for you to become a police officer you had to get a written note from one of the U.D.P. Ministers. That is no longer in effect. So, there are a lot of police officers that should not be in that department. As to the issue of the Commissioner and the People around him, when you look at it, the Commissioner is the person that has the most experience at the time to be able to help us. He has gone through, under a U.D.P. government, and he has taken the position under a PUP government, and we could have taken the position to say oh you work under U.D.P. we are going to fire you, no we are not doing that. We are saying; let’s use your experiences, not only as a police officer, but also as an attorney that we can use his knowledge of policing, his experience, and his ability. That is something we have to use. So, working together with him openly and transparently, we are starting to see some results. The numbers, when you are comparing them to what we have under the U.D.P., is improving. Now is it anywhere where we want it to be? Absolutely not. We have a very long way to go.”