In a press release let out on October 18 from Queen Street, the PUP slams the recently released UDP policy papers on crime prevention, saying that party (the UDP) is “in no position” to talk, for it has “intentionally failed to address the culture of crime, hate and violence that plagues (them) from top to bottom.”
The release goes on to say that the UDP stole “from the comprehensive approach to crime fighting that the PUP brought into office in 1998 and continues to improve upon.” The release calls the UDP plan to introduce DNA testing to fight crime “ludicrous”, because the $500,000 figure the UDP mentioned at their press conference that would be needed to establish DNA testing capacity for the Forensics Department, can’t even buy a DNA microscope, an essential piece of equipment which costs about $750,000.
The PUP claims that it has invested heavily, “allocated unprecedented resources to fight crime”, strengthened the Police Department, and the Judiciary, and attacked the root causes of crime with heavy investment in “Human Development, Education, Health, Housing, Youth and Sports.”
The release goes on to attack the UDP’s Wave Radio, saying it “incites hate and violence against any Belizean who differs with the UDP’s warped view of the world”, attacks Honorable Dean Barrow as an attorney who “admitted to being well paid to defend drug dealers and other criminal masterminds,” and condemns Mike Peyrefitte, (Hon.) Patrick Faber, (Hon.) Michael Finnegan, and Dean Samuels as known rough tuffs.
The UDP did point out that it could establish a DNA laboratory for $500,000 at their press conference so it would be good for us to get clarification here. As for Honorable Barrow boasting about being well paid, this writer remembers that boast being about fees collected from a bosom friend of the PUP, “the mutual”, who is heavy in the banking business…and has his claws gouging from our phone.