Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) Chairman Fred Mitchell yesterday pointed out “the irony and hypocrisy of the Free National Movement  Government’s position on the Citizen Security Initiative”, sponsored Inter American Development  Bank (IDB)  and administered by the Government.

The senator said that on the day following the grand opening of the Coconut Grove Community Centre,  the  Fox Hill Community Centre has been effectively shuttered.

He said, “I am advised on Friday 16  November; the staff were unable to come to work and the Government programme scheduled to be in the facility could not operate because the government has not paid the staff of the Centre for five months and has paid nothing for the use of the facility and its upkeep.”

He added, “this lack of payment of the staff is the third time that this has happened since I lost office in May 2017.  The MP for the area appears unable to do anything to assist.

“It  adds to the list of other commitments in default.  You will remember my constantly pointing out that the Government,  despite its promise and publicly announced commitment to do so,  did not pay the power bill and allowed the facility’s power to be tuned off last year this time and it was without power for eight months until a loan was extended to the Board to return the power,” he said. 

The Opposition Party Chairman added that the power appears to be on the verge of  being disconnected again.

He said, “I have since learned that the facility in Quakoo Street which was the second one of  the Community Centres in the Citizen Security Initiative sponsored by the IDB has been closed and the staff let go.”

He added, “I am advised that the Minister of National Security listed both Fox Hill and Quakoo Streets at the opening in Coconut Grove as examples of the Citizen  Security  Initiative. Surely the IDB ought to question what the Government is doing in both Fox Hill and in Quakoo Street.”

The former Fox Hill MP said that like most things with the current administration, they have “convenient amnesia when it comes to commitments set in place by their predecessors in office,  no matter the good it does for the public.”

He said, “It appears politics trumps everything with them. The thinking in Fox Hill is that because the staff were hired under the PLP,  they are suspected of being supporters of the PLP and the idea is to force them to quit so they can be replaced by the  “people’s time” supporters.  This would be most unfortunate if true.”

Mr. Mitchells urged the government live up to its commitments,  “pay the staff, the utility bills and the contractors,  so that the end stage repairs can be done,” leaving politics for another place and time.