Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has crit­i­cised Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar over the Gov­ern­ment’s han­dling of the coun­try’s crime sit­u­a­tion, de­scrib­ing it as a na­tion­al lead­er­ship cri­sis.

In a me­dia re­lease, the Op­po­si­tion Leader ac­cused the Prime Min­is­ter of at­tempt­ing to down­play the sever­i­ty of re­cent in­ci­dents, and of dis­tanc­ing her­self from re­spon­si­bil­i­ty at a time when the coun­try is grap­pling with what she [Beck­les] de­scribed as a wors­en­ing crime sit­u­a­tion.

Beck­les said the Prime Min­is­ter had failed to recog­nise the “hurt and pain of the na­tion” fol­low­ing a se­ries of vi­o­lent in­ci­dents, in­clud­ing the killing of a po­lice of­fi­cer, the theft of firearms from a mu­nic­i­pal po­lice sta­tion, re­ports of il­le­gal buri­als in­volv­ing chil­dren, and the death of a young girl in La­dy Young Road.