Pointing to the rise in murders on Grand Bahama, Central Grand Bahama Member of Parliament Neko Grant said yesterday he is "very concerned" about crime on that island.
"[There were] three murders in 36 hours, four within a week, six so far in 2014 and we're just in the fifth month of the year," he said during debate on the Medical Bill in the House of Assembly.
"The six murders for 2014 so far exceed the murder count for 2013 in its entirety. This certainly is a reason for much concern."
In 2013, Grand Bahama recorded five murders, according to police.
The Grand Bahama murder victims include a British man who was visiting his mother. Edgar George Dart, 56, was shot dead in a home invasion at Emerald Cay.
The crime was widely reported in the British press.
Following a spate of murders on that island earlier this year, Commissioner of Police Ellison Greenslade told The Nassau Guardian there are "no concerns about anything happening in Grand Bahama".
However, he later backtracked from that statement.
"We have had murders recently in Grand Bahama, which are cause for concern and they are being investigated," he told reporters two weeks after he made his initial statement.
Grant said more needs to be done to "suffocate crime". He noted that violence in New Providence is also a cause for concern.
"Our medical facilities are stretched to the limit," he said.
"The violent crimes contribute greatly to this. There is no sign in crime being suffocated. As a matter of fact, it would appear that crime is breathing pure oxygen.
"Here in New Providence, there has been a murder almost every day for the past two weeks. Not a day goes by without a crime being committed."
Grant also criticized the police for seizing Free National Movement Chairman Darron Cash's laptops and smartphone in the midst of the crime wave.
"With all the violent crimes on New Providence, it is most interesting that senior members of the police force can find the time to confiscate the cell phone and computer of the chairman of the Free National Movement.
"Would not their time be better spent seeking to break the back of crime or to suffocate it as the right honorable prime minister declared he would do? Would their time not be better spent winning the crime war?"
Last Thursday, police showed up at Cash's Cable Beach home and seized the items as part of an ongoing probe into a reported leak of confidential data from Bank of The Bahamas.
Cash denied that he or his wife, who is employed at the bank, were involved in the alleged leak.

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