KINGSTON, Jamaica — In a decisive rebuke of institutional mismanagement at one of the country’s most sensitive public safety agencies, the youth wing of Jamaica’s main opposition political group has thrown its full weight behind calls for the immediate exit of the top leader of the Firearm Licensing Authority (FLA). The demand follows damning conclusions of an official probe by the nation’s Integrity Commission that laid bare widespread wrongdoing at the agency tasked with regulating gun and ammunition access.
The controversy ignited after the Integrity Commission’s investigative report was formally presented to Jamaica’s Parliament earlier this week on Tuesday. The document outlined a litany of serious accusations: systemic corruption, unethical conduct by leadership, and deep-seated operational irregularities that have undermined the FLA’s core public safety mandate. One of the most shocking revelations unearthed by the probe was proof of deliberate manipulation of the agency’s official firearm and ammunition database. Most notably, records showed a deceased man was listed as purchasing 2,000 rounds of ammunition nearly three weeks after his death.
In an official public statement released this Thursday, the People’s National Party Youth Organisation (PNPYO) confirmed its unwavering support for the Opposition’s demand that Shane Dalling step down immediately from his post as FLA chief executive officer. The group emphasized that the Integrity Commission’s findings have validated long-held public suspicions that under Dalling’s tenure, the FLA devolved into an institution where accountability was treated as an optional obligation, official records were routinely falsified, and inconvenient evidence went missing without explanation.
For young Jamaicans, who disproportionately bear the brunt of rampant gun violence and illegal firearm trafficking on the island’s streets, the allegations uncovered by the probe represent a profound and unacceptable betrayal of public trust, the PNPYO said.
The youth organisation broke down three of the most alarming conclusions from the Integrity Commission’s investigation for public clarity. First, the commission confirmed that the identity of a dead individual was improperly used to fabricate ammunition sales records under the name of a licensed firearms dealer. Second, hundreds of rounds of ammunition stored inside the FLA’s own secure vault are unaccounted for, with no paper or digital trail to explain their disappearance. Third, critical server data containing sensitive regulatory records was permanently lost, because the government agency responsible for overseeing deadly weapons never implemented a basic, mandatory data backup system.
“The youth of Jamaica are tired of watching those in authority escape consequences while ordinary citizens bear the brutal cost of institutional failure,” said Peta-Gay Ferguson, general secretary of the PNPYO, in the statement.
Ferguson stressed that the probe’s findings amount to a complete failure of the FLA’s core mission to safeguard Jamaican communities, a failure that hits particularly hard for young people who have already lost friends and family members to preventable gun violence.
“Every round of ammunition that cannot be accounted for is a round that could end up in a community like mine, in the hands of someone who should never have had access to it,” Ferguson said. “When the agency meant to control who holds deadly weapons cannot account for its own vault, young Jamaicans pay that price with their lives. We refuse to stay silent while institutional failure fuels the violence that is stealing our generation.”
Beyond calling for Dalling’s resignation, the PNPYO has issued a formal demand to Jamaica’s minister of national security: launch a full, independent public investigation into every level of the FLA’s operations without delay to root out systemic wrongdoing and prevent future failures that put public safety at risk.