P.J. PATTERSON, Prime Minister and president of the People's National Party, yesterday urged the party to undertake a serious process of restructuring and renewal to make itself more vibrant and to better equip itself to respond to the needs of the Jamaican people.
In this regard, he made several recommendations, which he said are to form the basis of the process of restructuring and renewal within the party, according to a news release from the PNP.
In his main address to the annual two-day meeting of the party's National Executive Council (NEC), at the University of the West Indies, Mona, on Saturday and Sunday, he said party members needed to spend more time understanding and deliberating critical issues affecting the wider population. He noted that the party had an obligation to assist the Jamaican people to understand clearly the concept and consequence of the globalisation phenomenon and Jamaica's strategic response.
Mr. Patterson recommended a further opening up of the party and the Government it leads to embrace members of civil society and non-governmental organisations. "That is now the way the world is going," he said. He continued: "The party has to extend the process of Local Government reform to embrace the emergence of community councils and thereby deepen the participatory democracy we are pledged to build."
Also, he reminded members of the NEC that the party was a living entity that has a separate life of its own and should not lose its identity to the Government that it leads.
