By KHRISNA VIRGIL

Tribune Staff Reporter

kvirgil@tribunemedia.net

FNM Chairman Darron Cash yesterday chided the Christie administration for its “failed crime-fighting techniques” after the Canadian government sent an advisory out to its citizens this week warning them to be vigilant in Nassau.

Mr Cash said in a statement to The Big T that it was evident that the international community was rapidly reaching a point of frustration – the same point at which Bahamians had been for months.

“The enhanced crime warning issued by the Canadian government is another clear sign that despite the repeated assurances by the Prime Minister, his two Ministers of national security and the Commissioner of Police that the Bahamian people should take some comfort in the progress they are making in the war on crime,” Mr Cash said.

“Persons in the international community who ‘perform ongoing assessments of the safety and security conditions in the Bahamas’ are not persuaded and that lack of confidence in what the future looks like is causing them to issue the kinds of alerts and warnings we have seen over the past year.

“A major part of the problem is that this government is simply not focused. The Prime Minister reported recently that he had to go back to the drawing board on crime and to date we have heard little from him. The government found all the time they needed to get the Gaming Bill created in record time, and the Minister of National Security could spend precious hours touring the new fruit trees at BAMSI, but the table of new crime strategies remain empty.

“The talk about new courts has been frequent, but action has been slow. Meanwhile, the talk in the international community is about how violence in The Bahamas is increasing. Perhaps the new alert will be a warning to which they respond this time.”

The advisory, published on Wednesday on the Canadian government’s website www.canada.ca, was not nationwide but urged travellers to “exercise a high degree of caution, especially in Nassau”. It raised the alert status from normal.

Canadians are the fastest-growing visitor sector for The Bahamas: the first five months of this year saw the arrival of 75,552 Canadian tourists, a 17 per cent annual increase.

The non-resident Canadian High Commissioner for the Bahamas Robert Ready, told The Tribune on Thursday that the release of the enhanced warning came with the lead-up to the peak winter tourism season in mind.

“We’ve taken our Travel Advisory up one level,” he said. “We’ve done that based on our ongoing assessment on the safety and security conditions in The Bahamas.”

He said the Canadian government was aware of some increased violent activity in and around Nassau. He added that they were  aware of what their international partners were doing and thinking with regard to various advisories, and some of the tour operators.