Dennis Minott | Credibility in Crisis: Minister Horace Chang Must Resign

Jamaica’s Ministry of National Security is no longer wrestling with administrative mix-ups. It faces a full-blown crisis of credibility, accountability, and public trust. Deputy Prime Minister and Security Minister Dr Horace Chang sits at the centre — a figure once seen as one of the Cabinet’s more serious minds. That reputation now lies in ruins.

This is not about minor errors. Officials stumble. Ministers misspeak. But democracy does not crumble from honest mistakes. It unravels when ministers defend the indefensible, then pile on shifting excuses that mock public intelligence.

Exhibit A: Dr Chang’s claim that the M16 rifle fires “60 rounds per second.” Not imprecise. Impossible. The figure defies physics, firearms mechanics, and common sense.

The response? No correction. No humility. Just a glide past the issue, as if accuracy in security matters were optional.

It is not.

Exhibit B: the body-camera debacle. A tangle of explanations — uniforms, old kits, new kits, operational hiccups — so slippery that no one can pin down what’s true.

Body cams are not gimmicks. They are justice tools: police accountability, citizen protection, officer defence. When their story twists like this, constitutional alarm bells should ring.

Jamaica’s police serve a democracy, not a minister’s narrative. Citizens must trust official accounts of state power. When those accounts collapse, suspicion floods in.

That’s where Jamaica stands today.

Westminster rules — which Jamaica claims to follow — are clear. Mislead Parliament materially? Resign. Or be sacked. This is not pageantry. It’s the bedrock of oversight. Britain has seen ministers fall for less.

Prime Minister Andrew Holness now faces the test. Ignore this, and Cabinet credibility crumbles. Tolerate “flexible truth,” and parliamentary democracy becomes theatre.

Accuracy matters. Accountability must bite. Or Jamaica drifts toward a culture of exhausted cynicism, where lies stack up and standards dissolve.

Dr Chang’s intellect is not in question. That’s the sting. Jamaicans expected rigour from him, not excuses. Now, police legitimacy wobbles, citizens scoff at officialdom, and Parliament devolves into shouting.

No democracy survives that.

Resignation is not excessive. It’s hygiene. Dr Chang should quit the security portfolio. If not, Holness must act.

Jamaica deserves a minister whose words build trust, not trigger nationwide fact-checks.

Credibility is not optional. It’s the spine of governance.

When it snaps, trouble follows.