The concerns were no different last week when news came that Douglas Chambers, the chairman of the Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) was shot dead..

All he was doing was cleaning up the mess at the JUTC so that taxpayers would not be faced with the burden of having to pay extra tax to run the bus company, a woman remarked.

How can someone be murdered for simply doing his job in an honest and professional way? she queried.

A man who said he ran a successful wholesale business and meat shop in Kingston for 20 years said he closed the business three years ago when men came there demanding money on a weekly basis.

They said if I did not pay them $15,000 weekly I could not keep my business running, he said.

I asked them how they were going to stop me, and I bluntly told them that they were not going to get one cent from me.

death threats

I received numerous death threats after that. My business place was broken into almost every week. One day I just got fed up and closed down the business. I had ten people working with me at the time and because of those extortionists they were all put out of a job.

I know of several other persons who had to close their business places because of threats from extortionists. It is only the poor people in this country who are suffering because when businesses close down the workers are out of jobs and cannot support their families.

But I mention all these things to ask why the government has stopped hanging the murderers after they have been convicted and sentenced in court,." he added.

Although there are several reports of business people paying money to extortionists, there are only a few cases in court for such offences as the victims are afraid to report such cases