Opposition candidate for Central Leeward Conroy Huggins has decried the state of the two police stations in the constituencies amidst concerns about serious crime across the country.
Huggins, a first-time candidate, said he has visited the two police stations in Central Leeward, located at Layou and Barrouallie.
“The one in Barrouallie was built by the French long before the British came here, but it was good and functioning good,” Huggins, a former educator, told the New Democratic Party’s (NDP) convention in Petit Bordel.
He said the Minister of National Security closed down that police station in February 2021.
“You go there right now, the police station has trees growing on top of it — abandoned the police station. But after the volcano erupted in April of the same year, he moved the Chateaubelair Police Station officers and put them in the same abandoned [police station]. That’s not a man who lose he mind?” Huggins said.
He noted that the Unity Labour Party administration moved the police station from Barrouallie to a house in Peter’s Hope in February 2021.
“… the people of Barrouallie said to me, issues of this police station, it wasn’t anything significant. They had some plumbing issues and they could have fixed it, but they abandoned it so that they could give somebody a food to eat. That’s what I was told,” Huggins said.
Huggins asked the people at the convention and media audience if they had been to Layou recently.
“… whenever you drive by, stop across by the police station. Look up. I have videos of it.
I have pictures of it,” he said, noting that iWitness News and Searchlight recently reported on the state of the police station there.
“The police station has grass and shrubs growing in the gutter up to the top — the area that should be carrying the water down, grass and shrubs growing in it.
“I can’t understand how grass get up in there, but it shows you how long it has been abandoned,” Huggins said.
“The exterior of the building, it is so run down, so dilapidated, I cannot believe that we have people in that.”
He said the iWitness News report included a video showing the interior of the Layou Police Station, including the toilets, bathrooms and other places in the interior of the building.
“… the level of, I have to say, wutlessness, filthiness, and we have security officers in those conditions,” Huggins said.
“So, it is evident that the Minister of National Security ain’t care about our security and in Central Leeward, we do not even have a proper police station to house our security officers.”
He said that an NDP administration would relocate the police station from Peter’s Hope back to Barrouallie.
“Guaranteed!” Huggins said. “The business people in Barrouallie are fed up of the nonsense, and they said to me, they can’t wait for the NDP get into office.”
Huggins noted that earlier this year, a robbery occurred “high daylight, just 50 feet from where the police station used to be.
“Gunmen went in there and robbed the St Vincent Teachers’ Credit Union and Western Union and walked away with a sum of money. To date, nothing has been done,” Huggins said.
“They ain’t serious about security. Therefore, they cannot be serious about solving crime. Where are the opportunities for our youths? They have no plans to give our youths and young people opportunities.”
Huggins spoke to crime in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, noting that when he was a boy killings “most of the times used to be cutlass and they used to be one past one in the year.
“Today, it seems as if we manufacturing ammunitions in St. Vincent. Every week is a gun killing; homicide out of control. Last two years, record-breaking homicides, 40s and 50s and this year, God forbid, I do not wish for us to go up there, but we will be probably close to 40 by now.”
Huggins was speaking at a time when the country had recorded 38 homicides for 2024, including two in Petit Bordel on Sept. 27 and 29 and one in Barrouallie on Oct. 11.
“I really can’t keep up. I really can’t keep up. Well, when I have been advised that it seems as if there’s something hanky-panky going on to take the blood of our young men in St. Vincent and the Grenadines,” he said.
“But under a new Democratic Party, we say no to that, because the NDP wants for every one of our young men and women to be gainfully engaged, meaningfully employed, giving service to St. Vincent and the Grenadines.”
He said that under the ULP administration, the country has witnessed “the highest records of crimes we have ever seen for such a small country.
“Sometimes, I get home and that’s when I’m learning, that there were two killings, there was another killing, and it has become so normalised that it seems as if you no longer care,” Huggins said.
“I don’t know if we have a minister of national security, because I haven’t heard anything coming from the Minister of National Security in relation to what is the problem and how you going to address the problem.”
Huggins noted that Gonsalves, speaking at the regional summit on crime in Trinidad last year, said men were committing crimes to maintain their high-maintenance women.
“That shows that that man has lost his mind. The evidence is there. The evidence is there,” Huggins said.
“We have a sitting shadow minister of national security and after the next general elections, when he takes the rein of national security, St Vincent and the Grenadines, guarantee you difference is going to be seen,” he further said, referring to Central Kingstown MP and NDP vice-president, St. Clair Leacock.
“The security forces will be well-outfitted,” Huggins said.
Young man you have to put in the work if you hope to win. The other side are rigging ballot boxes all over the country. You have your work cut out, Good luck.
Samo, the spy in the sky will confuse and scatter them , all of them this time around , remember the tower of babel?