Beckles: Govt must explain new legislation’s rollout

Al­though the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Act is now in force, the Op­po­si­tion re­mains un­con­vinced that the Gov­ern­ment has a plan to tack­le crime.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia out­side the Red House yes­ter­day, Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les said there was still in­ad­e­quate pub­lic un­der­stand­ing of the leg­is­la­tion and ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of fail­ing to prop­er­ly ed­u­cate cit­i­zens about how it will op­er­ate.

“We are clear that the pub­lic is not aware. We had a town meet­ing in Mt Lam­bert where sev­er­al peo­ple asked ques­tions and had a lot of con­cerns. The is­sue is the Gov­ern­ment is not con­cerned about ed­u­cat­ing the peo­ple. The Gov­ern­ment is sim­ply con­cerned about abus­ing its ma­jor­i­ty and pass­ing sev­er­al pieces of leg­is­la­tion with­out any care or con­cern about the pub­lic,” she said.