Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad Bisses­sar says "crim­i­nal­i­ty has risen to an all-time high un­der the PNM gov­ern­ment". In a press re­lease is­sued to­day, the Op­po­si­tion Leader stat­ed that "Row­ley’s lead­er­ship has sunk to an all-time low in the face of three very se­ri­ous scan­dals now af­fect­ing his Gov­ern­ment."

The fol­low­ing is a press re­lease from the Op­po­si­tion Leader:

Crim­i­nal­i­ty has risen to an all-time high un­der this gov­ern­ment. At the same time, Row­ley’s lead­er­ship has sunk to an all-time low in the face of three very se­ri­ous scan­dals now af­fect­ing his Gov­ern­ment. 
 
First­ly, it has come to light that Min­is­ter Fos­ter Cum­mings has been the sub­ject of an of­fi­cial po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­volv­ing se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion over state lands as far back as 2019. Ac­cord­ing to a leaked Spe­cial Branch re­port Min­is­ter Cum­mings via his com­pa­ny, Pi­cal Ser­vices Lim­it­ed al­leged­ly con­duct­ed busi­ness with a known gang leader and drug deal­er.
 
This is on top of the re­cent dis­turb­ing al­le­ga­tions of “land grab­bing” at In­di­an Trail Recre­ation­al ground in Cou­va in­volv­ing Min­is­ter Cum­mings and Pi­cal Ser­vices lim­it­ed. 
 
It is sim­ply un­fath­omable that giv­en these rev­e­la­tions that Min­is­ter Cum­mings is still hold­ing his Min­is­te­r­i­al po­si­tion. Row­ley ei­ther does not care that a mem­ber of his cab­i­net is un­der po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion for al­leged mis­use of pub­lic funds and as­so­ci­a­tion with a known drug deal­er or he is dri­ving the metaphor­i­cal get­away car for Min­is­ter Cum­mings, by re­main­ing silent over the is­sue. 
 
This dis­turb­ing rev­e­la­tion in­volv­ing Min­is­ter Cum­mings fur­ther ex­pos­es the deep and in­ti­mate re­la­tion­ship be­tween this gov­ern­ment and the crim­i­nal el­e­ments of so­ci­ety and how state funds are used to fund them.  
 
Sec­ond­ly, this week a re­port in­to the op­er­a­tions of state-run chil­dren’s homes re­vealed shock­ing and dis­turb­ing ac­counts of men­tal, phys­i­cal and sex­u­al abuse of chil­dren. 
 
De­spite the fact this re­port was com­plet­ed in De­cem­ber of 2021, Gen­der and Child Af­fairs Min­is­ter Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy wait­ed a full five months be­fore pre­sent­ing it to the pub­lic. Giv­en the se­ri­ous na­ture of this re­port, it is crim­i­nal that Web­ster-Roy saw no ur­gency in en­sur­ing these re­port­ed in­ci­dents of abuse be brought to an im­me­di­ate stop. 
 
One is left to con­clude that Web­ster-Roy was more con­cerned with pro­tect­ing the for­mer Di­rec­tor of the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty, the PNM-ap­point­ed Nichola Har­vey-Mitchell than she was with pro­tect­ing vul­ner­a­ble chil­dren un­der her care. The lethar­gic man­ner in which Web­ster-Roy has act­ed over this se­ri­ous is­sue un­der­scores that she is man­i­fest­ly un­fit to act in her role over­see­ing Chil­dren’s Af­fairs. 
 
Last­ly, but by no means least, vi­o­lent crime con­tin­ues to sky­rock­et un­der this PNM gov­ern­ment. There have now been 193 mur­ders in just 125 days so far. Yet Row­ley’s Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds is on record telling the na­tion that it is “not his job” to make the pub­lic feel safe. 
 
Hinds con­tin­ues to be a mas­sive fail­ure pos­sess­ing no pol­i­cy nor in­spir­ing any pub­lic con­fi­dence in his abil­i­ties.
 
Crim­i­nals have be­come even more em­bold­ened, car­ry­ing out day­light mur­ders in the mid­dle of our cap­i­tal city. Day­light rob­beries and home in­va­sions have be­come the norm. Busi­ness own­ers are mer­ci­less­ly slaugh­tered for their life's work with no jus­tice be­ing de­liv­ered to fam­i­lies. 
 
The fact that these Min­is­ters, Cum­mings, Web­ster-Roy and Hinds are not be­ing held to ac­count by Row­ley is a tes­ta­ment to the swamp of cor­rup­tion and crony­ism that this PNM gov­ern­ment is im­mersed in. 
 
It is clear that this Row­ley led PNM Gov­ern­ment is quick­ly spi­ral­lling down­ward, un­for­tu­nate­ly, they are tak­ing the rest of the na­tion down with them.