JCF ready for election - Forbes

Forbes

FRANCIS FORBES, the Commissioner of Police, said yesterday that the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) is fully prepared to deal with any eventuality that may arise on election day.

The police chief said that contingency plans are in place across the island, noting that the JCF will be relying heavily on Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) helicopters to help in the area of command and control.

"In every area of this country, we have plans that will take care of things like electrical outage, flood, rain on Election Day, public disorder and for criminal elements," Commissioner Forbes told reporters at a briefing at the Police Officers Club in St. Andrew.

He said that apart from the election plans, he has asked divisional officers, who all attended yesterday's briefing, to come up with a contingency plan.

Like the 1997 general election, Commissioner Forbes said a special control centre will be established at his office to monitor the election islandwide.

The police force will be spending $93 million on additional transportation, accommodation and food for members of the team. Assistant Commissioner Jevene Bent said that the police would be beefing up its fleet of vehicles by renting 102 30-and 15-seater buses and nine cars.

Members of the police team on Election Day will be attired in uniforms; plainclothes police are expected to be clad in vests marked police, with numbers. The lawmen will be assisted by more than 16,000 trained special constables on Election Day.

Commissioner Forbes said that detectives from the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) and Bureau of Special Investigation (BSI) will be out in their numbers monitoring the conduct of their colleagues.

He said that a system will be in place to identify units that are not supposed to be in a particular zone. In respect to the safety of police, the Commissioner said he has ordered 4,500 additional bullet-proof vests for the team.

Responding to reports that criminals were planning to disrupt the Election Day proceedings, the Commissioner said the police have been monitoring intelligence reports for some time. He mentioned people said to be involved in the drug trade, but while not disclosing what action has since been taken by the police, the Commissioner said the lawmen were acting in accordance with intelligence reports.

Speaking at the same briefing, Political Ombudsman Bishop Herro Blair said that he has asked political parties to refrain from character assassination on the campaign trail.

"I have advised them to remove all advertisements (relating to character assassination) and encourage them to stick to issues, and present the facts and let the people decide for themselves," emphasised Bishop Blair.

Oliver Clarke, president of Private Sector of Jamaica (PSOJ), who also spoke, said: "This election has had the best preparation of any election I believe since 1944. I think that we all need to say to politicians, of whatever party, is that, if any candidate or party is associated with violence, criminals, drug barons, hooligans in this election, I believe the swing voters of this country will vote that candidate out and vote that party out. It is important for political parties to realise that they have a responsibility to ensure peace and democracy in every constituency."