BUOYED by the support of all four vice-presidents, six regional chairmen and other senior members of the party, a confident Dr Peter Phillips has turned his attention to the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Administration, even before he manages to stave off a challenge from Peter Bunting for the top job in the People’s National Party (PNP).

Phillips and Bunting will clash on Saturday as delegates elect the person to lead the PNP into its 81st year, but at his St Andrew East Central Constituency Conference at Tarrant High School on Sunday, the incumbent had little time for the challenger as he focused on the Andrew Holness-led Administration.

“Come September 7 we have one mission, but when we done with that we a go through Jamaica from top to bottom, from north to south, and east to west. We [are] going to tell them that the corruption must stop. Them must lock up somebody now,” declared Phillips, as he pointed to recent anti-corruption demonstrations by the PNP in Half-Way-Tree, St Andrew, and Montego Bay, St James.

“We are going to conference and after conference we on the road again, and I’m looking forward for you to be there with me because together we are going to stamp out corruption in Jamaica,” said Phillips.

He added: “Everyone around now understands, anybody who is paying attention, that ‘Labour’ (the JLP) is not working for the people of Jamaica.

“Everyone around now knows that all we have been given by the ‘green people’ is a set of broken promises. Who remember when them was promising that you would sleep with your door and windows open? Yet the reality is 5,000 people murdered since the Government changed and ‘Labour’ came in 2016.

“The reality is after 10 states of emergency and two ZOSOs (zones of special operations), what you have is murders climbing like never before, and the reality is that with all of that they still have no plan on how to manage crime,” added Phillips, as he pointed to what he claimed were other broken promises by the Holness Administration.

The PNP president charged that the JLP’s promise of moving Jamaica “from poverty to prosperity” was also hollow.

“A man tell me last night, after me ask how him doing, him say, ‘Prosperity a kill me,’ because him never poor so yet. Their own numbers say instead of prosperity there is growing poverty,” said Phillips.

“And on top of that, you have more scandal and corruption than we have ever seen before. Fourteen billion dollars of your money… and yet when you go to hospital you can’t get a bed if you admit, and the pickney dem at schools don’t have enough desks and chairs.

“Think of what $14 billion could do to fix hospital that don’t have X-ray machines…Labour not working for the people of Jamaica,” Phillips charged.

The Opposition leader told cheering Comrades that it is obvious that Jamaica needs the PNP to fix the economy as it did before, following a JLP Administration.

“Jamaica needs a safe pair of hands to manage the affairs of the country. Too many of our young people are unemployed, there has been a disaster in agriculture…and no effort is being made to improve the economy,” said Phillips, as he declared that he will live and die under the banner of democratic socialism.

According to Phillips, a future PNP Administration will ensure that every child in Jamaica has access to similar high-quality education, as this is the only way for the country to achieve success.

“And that is the mission of the People’s National Party that I intend to lead from Jamaica House,” declared Phillips.

“Our mission in the People’s National Party is to seek power for the people [and] to seek power to improve the quality of life of the people. We don’t seek power so that a few people can call themselves minister and walk round like it is a big thing.

“We seek power for one reason and one reason only: To uplift the poor and those who are left behind,” added Phillips to more loud cheers.