The Parliamentary Opposition People’s National Party (PNP) says it would approach yesterday’s anti-crime summit as serious opportunity to finally arrive at a consensus on Jamaica’s most intractable national issue.

In a statement, today, Party President, Dr. Peter Phillips, M.P., said the agreement to convene the meeting comes almost a year after the PNP proposed such a meeting, and ten months after Prime Minister Andrew Holness agreed to hosting such a meeting with stakeholders, but reneged, which scuttled a deal reached at the first Vale Royal meeting on January 7, 2019.

Dr. Phillips said, the Party would be represented at today’s conference by a delegation of six, including the Shadow Ministers of National Security, Fitz Jackson, M.P; Finance and the Public Service, Mark Golding, M.P; Labour, Information and Technology, and General Secretary, Julian Robinson, M.P; and Health and Wellness, and Leader of Opposition Business in the House, Dr. Morais Guy, M.P; and Mr. Michael Vaccianna, the Party’s Legal Advisor.

Dr. Phillips says the Party sees today’s meeting as an opportunity to advance the summit process which began in July when the PNP convened a stakeholders’ conference to begin the dialogue on finding a solution to the nation’s crime wave.