By Devonne Cornelius
Basseterre, St. Kitts, Apr 10, 2024 (ZIZ Newsroom): Prime Minister of St. Kitts and Nevis Hon. Dr. Terrance Drew is calling on the nation’s youth to ‘leave the life of crime’, stressing that he wants young people ‘to have a real opportunity and a real chance’ at life.
Dr. Drew, who is also the minister responsible for national security, was speaking during his April 09 edition of ‘The Roundtable’ discussion with the local media.
”It cannot just be using security forces but it has to also be developing other social programs because we want people to have a real opportunity and a real chance …These are our citizens at the end of the day and they should be given the opportunity to really develop themselves.”
Dr. Drew, who currently serves as Chairman of the Regional Security System Council,
highlighted areas St. Kitts and Nevis and the Caribbean would be focusing on to tackle crime.
“We looked at movement through the region and how we can track it so that people don’t go from one area to another carrying out crimes without being detected,” he said adding that the focus would be on closer collaboration and more training in detecting criminal activity.
“Cyber-crime as well as we are building out that and security in general in dealing with how climate change affects security.”
The national security minister said “climate change can have a significant impact on security” while referring to countries that have been negatively impacted by natural disasters and forcing people to relocate to other territories and not undergoing the necessary security checks.
Guns and drug trafficking is also an area of concern for the Caribbean.
Dr. Drew spoke to what is being done to address this.
“The obvious threats we know are guns and we just see them coming through the Caribbean. We have looked at that risk and a number of measures on the regional level have been put in place with us partnering with our international partners.
We have formed a vetting centre to strengthen our security; more training and surveillance in the region to deal with the scourge of guns.”
United States and Caribbean leaders have been jointly prioritizing efforts to disrupt illicit firearms trafficking to address the rising levels of crime in the region.