Renu­ka Singh

Pow­ers of ar­rest for armed forces and manda­to­ry poly­graph tests for all of­fi­cers are part of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ (UNC) crime-fight­ing plans.

The par­ty’s can­di­date for St Joseph, Ahloy Hunt last night out­lined sev­er­al new ini­tia­tives that the par­ty planned to un­der­take when it takes of­fice.

Speak­ing at the UNC’s vir­tu­al meet­ing last night, Hunt said that part of the plan al­so in­cludes con­stant train­ing for all armed State per­son­nel.

“All State se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices must be prop­er­ly equipped with es­sen­tial tools and con­tin­u­ous skills train­ing to en­sure an­ti-crime mea­sures are prac­ti­cal, sus­tain­able and ef­fec­tive,” he said.

He once again broached the sub­ject of re­struc­tur­ing the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty in­to two sep­a­rate units - Of­fice of Home Af­fairs and a Min­istry of De­fence.

“More im­por­tant­ly, they will re­ceive the im­por­tant tools to re­sources to tru­ly en­hance the es­sen­tial com­pe­ten­cies geared to­ward im­prov­ing the de­tec­tion rate of mur­ders and oth­er se­ri­ous crimes,” he said.

Hunt al­so de­tailed the first things a UNC Gov­ern­ment plans to un­der­take to fight crime when it takes over the Gov­ern­ment which in­clud­ed a manda­to­ry poly­graph for all se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel.

Hunt said the UNC al­so planned to bring in spe­cial ar­mour-plat­ed ve­hi­cles and a com­pre­hen­sive pa­trolling which in­clud­ed drones and foot pa­trol.

Part of the plans al­so in­clud­ed bet­ter-equipped ports of en­try and the rat­i­fi­ca­tion of the pen­sion plan so that of­fi­cers can come out of re­tire­ment.

“The De­fence Force re­tire­ment age would be 60 years across the board. I will en­sure that they have an en­hanced med­ical plan for them and their fam­i­lies. I will al­so make hous­ing more ac­ces­si­ble,” Hunt said.