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‘The 18 years were progressive years’

Golding hits back at PM’s critique of PNP’s management of Jamaican economy

Published:Monday | December 4, 2023 | 12:06 AMAlbert Ferguson/Gleaner Writer
Mark Golding (centre), president of the Peoples National Party, is supported from left by Jason Cummings, councillor candidate for the Rose Hall Division, and Rochell Rochell Reid-Knot, parliamentary candidate for St. James East Central, as they engaged a
Mark Golding (centre), president of the Peoples National Party, is supported from left by Jason Cummings, councillor candidate for the Rose Hall Division, and Rochell Rochell Reid-Knot, parliamentary candidate for St. James East Central, as they engaged a member of the constituency during a tour.

WESTERN BUREAU:

MARK GOLDING has rejected as baseless, claims by the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) that his People’s National Party (PNP) destroyed the country during its 18 years of governance from 1989 to 2007.

“They can’t tell us anything about 18 years wasted. The 18 years were progressive years; we brought poverty from multiple digits down to single digits,” Golding, the PNP president, said in defence of his party’s management of Jamaica’s affairs.

Addressing a PNP spot meeting in Johns Hall Square following a tour of the St James East Central constituency on Wednesday, Golding said his party, while in government, made people’s lives better by reducing the national debt by over 93 per cent of the gross domestic product.

“We brought the national debt from over 200 per cent of GDP to 107 per cent. Unemployment to a single digit, and then, under Sista P (former Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller), we had to do it all over again because the JLP mashed up the economy because they couldn’t cross it,” Golding stated.

He went on to list several programmes, services, and institutions that were established during the 18 years, among which the PNP president named the CHASE Fund, the Drug for the Elderly programme, and the divestments of the Donald Sangster International Airport, and the Norman Manley International Airport.

“Portmore was built under the PNP; the North Coast Highway was built under the PNP; Highway 2000 was built under the PNP; the North Southlink Highway was built by the PNP,” Golding said in defence of his party’s stewardship of Jamaica.

Earlier this week, Prime Minister Andrew Holness, the JLP leader, told supporters at his party’s 80th anniversary conference that the PNP destroyed the country and that his party, since returning to state power in 2016, has rebuilt it to international standards.

In a presentation where he sought to render the PNP unfit to manage the affairs of the country, the JLP leader warned against voting for Golding and his slate of candidates in the elections when called. His message was targeting Jamaicans born between the 1990s and early 2000s.

“We know that there is a generation of Jamaicans who were not born in the 1970s, and they have no clue as to how the other party destroyed Jamaica. They have no clue,” Holness said while conversing with JLP supporters.

“There is a generation born in the 90s and early 2000s; they have no clue as to how the 18 and a half years of the PNP destroyed Jamaica,” the JLP leader argued.

Holness told the country that his government is now tasked with educating those born during that period, while sharing that it has been a long time since he went down the road of the historical politics of the country, arguing that it was important so that the full context of where the country is today is understood.

“Our young people need to appreciate how far we are coming from and what we had to struggle against so that they can understand what we have achieved today and how we have transformed Jamaica into the gem of the Caribbean,” Holness explained.

He said 10 years ago, if you were to define Jamaica, you would say Jamaica is a country with high debt, high inflation, high unemployment, an unstable exchange rate, low reserves, poorly rated on the international market, a country on the brink of bankruptcy.

“If you ask the international community today, they’ll tell you, Jamaica, we are upgrading their ratings and we are giving them a positive outlook. Jamaica is getting the best rating it has ever gotten in its history,” Holness said, while encouraging electors not to forget that the next time they go to the polls,

However, Golding countered, arguing that the PNP is a nation-building party that has strategically repaired and rescued Jamaica’s image internationally. He said the JLP administration took International Monetary Fund (IMF) money and refused to return it, negatively affecting the trust and credibility of the country at the time.

“They abandoned the IMF programme and brought Jamaica’s reputation into the mud with the international financial community and it’s Sista P and Dr Peter Phillips who delivered the programme, and I, the man in charge of the legislation that had to make sure we meet all the IMF tests on time,” the PNP president said.

“So the PNP is a nation-building party. The PNP is a party of upliftment for the masses of people. The PNP is a party of vision, of a better Jamaica for each and every one. We are a party that believes in integrity in government,” he countered, adding that his party is not here to scrape resources from the people and give them to friends, company, or those politically connected.

albert.ferguson@gleanerjm.com