Amid damning revelations by Shane Dalling, CEO of the Firearms Licensing Authority (FLA), the Opposition People’s National Party (PNP) is today (February 17) calling for his resignation. 

The PNP, in a statement, contended that the tit-for-tat exchanges between Dalling and former deputy chairman Dennis Meadows since an FLA press conference on Tuesday paint a picture that “the FLA has become a cesspool of corruption over the last six years”. 

Dalling, at the FLA press conference, disclosed that over 200 illegal gun licences were granted over to persons with a criminal record, including entertainer Jah Cure and an unnamed ‘Corporate Area don’.

The FLA CEO, since joining the entity in June 2017, went further to slam Meadows and other critics whom he accused of trying to undermine his authority with unscrupulous social media attacks, claiming that he had come forward to air the allegations after a lengthy investigation into the source of emails directed at the leadership of the armament authority. 

Dalling, in a subsequent interview with Nationwide News following the press conference, said former national security minister Peter Bunting repeatedly labelled him an ‘alarmist’. 

Almost prophetically, Dalling used the same “cesspool” reference to describe the FLA before he joined the controversy-mired agency.

In response, Bunting was quoted in the PNP statement saying that Dalling’s “penchant for alarming” media grandstanding is documented, adding that he was yet to see “a single, successful prosecution (or even arrest” arising from the CEO’s many claims. 

Insisting the entity needs “sober and competent leadership” to restore its bruised integrity, the PNP demanded that National Security Minister Dr Horace Chang and the FLA Board strip Dalling of his position on the premise of his poor performance. 

The Opposition also highlighted what it claimed was the FLA’s failure to publish an annual report to Cabinet since 2016-17.

See PNP statement below: 

“The Opposition has observed with concern the allegations and counter-allegations of corruption traded between two JLP operatives, both with intimate knowledge of the operations of the Firearms Licensing Authority under the JLP administration. While it is difficult to discern the entire truth without the report of an independent investigation, it is now clear to the public that the FLA has become a cesspool of corruption over the last six years. 

The Opposition is calling for:

1. The Minister of National Security and the Board of the FLA to remove Shane Dalling as the CEO of the FLA for poor performance, especially in light of Mr. Dalling’s own admission that he can’t fix the troubling issues plaguing the entity. Further evidence of poor governance and non-performance of the FLA’s CEO is the fact that the controversy riddled entity has not even submitted an Annual Report to Cabinet (as per the Cabinet Office website updated 02/2022) since 2016/17.

2. The Integrity Commission to complete the investigation into corruption in the issuance of firearms licences by the FLA. That investigation was launched by the Office of the Contractor General in 2017, but was derailed by the government prematurely bringing into effect the new Integrity Commission Act, even though no transitional arrangements had been made for its operations. While the Opposition is aware of the limited investigative resources available to the Integrity Commission, it is imperative that – given the threat to national security – this investigation be prioritised, and the report submitted to Parliament as soon as possible.

Shadow Minister of National Security – Peter Bunting – commented, “Mr Dalling has a penchant for alarming statements to the media ranging, from the ‘discovery’ of a gun-making machine which turned out to be a regular machine tool to his repeatedly ‘calling in MOCA’ to investigate various allegations of corruption. The public is not aware of a single successful prosecution (or even arrest) arising from any of these multiple disclosures.

The FLA needs sober and competent leadership to restore the integrity of the entity, and to regain the confidence of local law enforcement, our international partners, and the Jamaican public.”