Minister of Foreign Affairs and Immigration Fred Mitchell said yesterday that now is not the time to engage in a "tit-for-tat" on the crime issue, noting Bahamians only want the problem solved.

"I said we've done the best we can in the circumstances and will continue to try as hard as we can to get the matters resolved," he told The Guardian. "I [don't] want to get in a tit-for-tat about who said what and who didn't say what on a political platform. That's my view. The people want the problem solved. There's no value in my view of going tit-for-tat about who said this and who didn't say what. Right now we just want the problem solved.

"The issue is how do we solve it. I think we are trying to do the best we can using all of the resources we can. We are going to keep going at it."

Mitchell appeared on the Guardian Radio 96.9 talk show Jeffrey with host Jeff Lloyd on Thursday and spoke about the crime problem in The Bahamas. There have been 130 murders so far this year, a record.

"My interest as a policy maker, as a politician, is helping to resolve this matter," Mitchell said. "As I've said on Jeff Lloyd's show, it is a vexing issue. It is a difficult issue and we are trying our utmost to see what we can do to resolve it. That is the important point, resolving the issue. That's my focus."

The two latest murders happened on Wednesday night. Queen's College teacher Joyelle McIntosh and a man identified as Demyko Forbes were shot and killed in separate incidents that night. Minister of National Security Dr. Bernard Nottage has said that he is "shocked" at the apparent "glee" which, he claims, some people have at the country marking a new murder record.

Nottage said the fact that some are calling it a record is "unthinkable." But Montagu MP Richard Lightbourn said Nottage's assertion "demonstrates the fact that the minister has clearly lost sight of reality".

During the last Ingraham administration, Nottage, along with other members of the Progressive Liberal Party, consistently criticized the then government for rising murder rates. Several prominent PLPs called for the then national security minister, Tommy Turnquest, to resign. In the lead-up to the 2012 election, the PLP erected controversial murder billboards that read: "Under the FNM 490-plus murders".

In 2014, Prime Minister Perry Christie said in hindsight he would not have erected the billboards.

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