FINALLY!

Prime Minister Andrew Holness yesterday used his humble upbringing in Spanish Town, St Catherine, to launch the governing Jamaica Labour Party’s (JLP) local government elections campaign, telling poor Jamaicans that he was one of them.

In a 50-minute-long speech that eclipsed Local Government Minister Desmond McKenzie’s address to a packed Montego Bay Convention Centre in St James, Holness said that after “deep” soul searching as to why he wanted to lead the country, he was taken back to his humble beginnings.

McKenzie told Labourites, the majority of whom were candidates, that Jamaicans would go to the poll on February 26, two days before the due date.

Nomination Day is on February 8.

But it was Holness, the leader of the JLP, who was the main act.

“When the people of Jamaica see me and hear me and touch me and feel me, they know I am real. I am from them. I am like them. I went through their struggles. I understand their struggles, and I am true to them,” said Holness.

“I am your child, I am your son, I am your brother, I am your uncle, and I could be your father. You are my family,” he added.

Holness said he was shaped mentally and politically growing up in the inner city, “witnessing and seeing” political violence firsthand.

The prime minister said like thousands of Jamaicans who walked to school, he, too, shared that experience and that of rinsing and repeating one school uniform.

“I know what it is like to not have lunch money, but nobody in the world would know because I was poor but proud,” the JLP leader said to thunderous applause.

MISSION: POVERTY TO PROSPERITY

He said the experience put him on a mission to move Jamaica from poverty to prosperity. Holness said that that mission moved to a partnership for prosperity and that the goal now is to end absolute poverty with the support of churches and non-governmental organisations, among other entities.

Drawing on the HOPE programme, the Programme of Advancement Through Health and Education, and the doubling of the minimum wage, Holness said his administration was fulfilling that mission.

But he said the greatest achievement so far was getting Jamaicans employed, citing the record-low unemployment rate of 4.2 per cent.

Added to that, he said that his administration had strengthened Jamaica’s economy and infrastructure and urged the party’s candidates to communicate how this was done with the electorate to prevent randomised voting.

Under the theme ‘Building For You and Your Community for the Local Election’, Holness said his Government has acted to solve issues as they arise at the local level, asserting at that the same commitment was not made under a People’s National Party (PNP) administration.

Highlighting a section of the South Coast Highway in the vicinity of 11 Miles, Bull Bay, to make his point, Holness said there was a commitment to repair that stretch of road following protests. He said that this has been done with the construction of the highway.

“You have a Government that takes responsibility and acts. The difference is in time gone by, you were struggling without hope, without real prospects of change happening. And why was this? Because our economy was floundering.

“Now, because you made a good choice to put a good team in to properly manage the economy without being a burden on you but bringing more resources, we are now able to put in place long-term programmes to address these long-standing problems. Why disrupt that?” he questioned, arguing that that it was the first time allocations of more than $150 million had been earmarked for each constituency to repair roads.

This is being done under the SPARK Programme.

EXISTING PROBLEMS

Similarly, he drew attention to the lack of bed space at hospitals and wait time from as far back as 2013, noting that these problems still exist today, but he said that for the first time in 40 years, the Government, because of its reported management of the economy, is able to invest in a “big way”.

“Administrations before didn’t do that and couldn’t do that. They could only talk. So you are now in a totally different era of government. An era created by the Jamaica Labour Party. An era of stability and growth that needs to be continued in order to ensure our mission of prosperity for all Jamaicans,” he said.

He said that at the local level, his Government is “purpose-building towns”, beginning with the Morant Bay Urban Centre in St Thomas. He said this would continue with Oracabessa in St Mary and Boundbrook in Portland.

“... Jamaica 2.0 is being built before your very eyes. And as I close my presentation to you as councillors, it means that local government can’t remain the same way it has been - that there has to be radical changes to how local government operates. So I want the public to know that though we are coming to you to ask for your vote and your support, we are also aware that you have concerns, and like everything else that this Government has taken on, we have done it in a strategic and systematic way to ensure that the results are long-lasting, fair, and equitable,” said Holness.

Reacting to yesterday’s announcement of the date for the long-delayed polls, PNP President Mark Golding said it was “a good day for Jamaica”, saying it was time for “a new government – first with the local [government elections] and then afterwards with the general”.

kimone.francis@gleanerjm.com