Karl Samuda, general secretary of the Jamaica Labour Party, updates the media on the party's annual conference that will take place this Sunday at the National Arena in St Andrew. - Norman Grindley/Chief Photographer
Hundreds of police personnel and dozens of private security guards are to ring the National Arena on Sunday as the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) stages the public session of its annual conference.
The party is to spend almost $500,000 on security.
This is part of between $15 and $20 million the JLP will spend to stage its 66th annual conference.
But JLP General Secretary Karl Samuda says that will be money well spent to prevent a repeat of the shooting incident which left one man dead, and two others nursing gunshot wounds during last year's conference.
"You will recall that last year we had a very tragic incident and this year we are taking all precautionary measures to ensure there are no recurrences of that," Samuda told journalists yesterday during a media briefing at the party's New Kingston headquarters.
All will be searched
"All persons entering the arena will be searched and no member of parliament or caretaker will be permitted to enter the arena with any large entourage," Samuda added.
He said that after talks with the police, it was decided that members of the force would be deployed to search everyone entering the conference.
"It (last year's shooting incident) has been a wake-up call for ourselves and the People's National Party. It has served as a warning that with events of this nature (security) must be taken very seriously," Samuda said.
He was supported by conference chairman Russell Hadeed who announced that no weapons would be allowed into the arena and politicians assigned protective security would be restricted to only one armed bodyguard in the facility.
"What that means is that there will be a lockdown of the arena at five o'clock Sunday morning when police personnel will do a sweep of the building. Only police personnel on duty will be armed in the arena," Hadeed said.
No contest
Security apart, the annual conference will be highlighted by the address from the party leader, Prime Minister Bruce Golding.
Golding is the sole nominee for that post and will be returned by acclaim before addressing the conference at 2 p.m.
"He is going to outline the strategies that will guide us as we go forward. He will outline specific areas of concentrations and he will enlighten Jamaica on the developments so far in respect of a number of issues affecting our economy and the social policies of our government," Samuda said.