JAMAICA | PNP Youth Flays Juliet Holness’ Rant on housing - Betrays the Governments Perpetuation of Two Jamaicas

KINGSTON, Jamaica: The People’s National Party Youth Organization  says it "notes with approval, the collective outrage on social and traditional media, levelled at Member of Parliament Juliet Holness over her vulgar and shameful comments made against Jamaican citizens at a JLP Conference over the weekend."

In a statement today, the PNP Yo says "It is clear that Mrs Holness who is also the wife of Jamaica's prime minister, does not appreciate the role she plays as a representative of the people and a legislator.

Rather than encouraging the administration, of which she is a senior member, to rectify the long standing land settlement issues from Jamaica’s colonial past, she sought to score political points by continuing the age old discrimination of certain Jamaicans by virtue of where they live."

The statement went on: "Mrs Holness must know the depressed living conditions has no political colour and must not be addressed in a partisan way.  

Of course, in her utterances, she has clearly outlined the Government’s policy on land settlement and housing, that is, ‘treat those who are on the margins as political opponents unworthy of any consideration and blame political opponents for their condition.”  

The PNPYO is grateful for one thing, however, Mrs Holness has reiterated an important point that we want to affirm, that the PNP and the JLP are not the same.  

The PNP is seized of the historical conditions that have resulted in our land and housing challenges today.

That is why it is an indisputable fact that most of the progress and development in housing infrastructure in Jamaica were achieved under a PNP administration. 

The Opposition party youth arm pointed out that "It was the Michael Manley-led administration which established the National Housing Trust in 1976 and set the mandate for the agency to provide housing solutions to low-income earners and the working class.

Initiatives such as Operation P.R.I.D.E., which saw the development and transfer of 58,000 lots to citizens and the Land Administration and Management Programme (LAMP), which saw the regularisation of land and the provision of titles to citizens who occupied lands for extended periods, were implemented by the PNP."

The organization's statememn went on to say that "It was also the PNP that established the 1977 Local Improvements (Communities Amenities) Act and made major amendments to the Registration of Titles Act and so much more. 

 Fundamentally, the PNP sees affordable and quality housing as a basic human right. We dare Mrs Holness to match the JLP’s record in housing and land regularization to that of the PNP," the youth organization said. 

"We remind Mrs Holness that her own record on housing is disgracefully poor. JAJ Development and Holdings Limited, a company in which Mrs Holness maintains majority interest, has allegedly wreaked havoc on the lives of several communities in this country and it is reported that her company has allegedly breached the laws of this country.  

So concerned were the citizens that they had to seek the intervention of the Prime Minister since Mrs Holness and her company were unresponsive to their concerns."

"The PNP has much to be proud of in terms of its record on housing, the majority of communities built in this country were because of deliberate efforts of the Party and no amount of disingenuity by Mrs Holness can change this proud history," the PNP YO said.

" In our next administration, the PNPYO is confident that a Prime Minister Mark Golding will expand on our rich tradition and ensure that rather than discriminate and ridicule those on the margins of society, we provide legislation, policies and resources to give them dignity in the country of their birth.  WE ARE NOT THE SAME!!!

"If Mrs Holness has any decency and respect for her office, she would offer an unreserved apology, but, we do not hold our breath," the PNP Youth arm concluded.

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