THE Opposition People’s National Party (PNP) yesterday launched its welfare fund that has been established to assist supporters and workers of the party who have fallen on hard times.

It formed part of a promise made by newly elected PNP President Mark Golding in the run-up to the leadership election which also featured Member of Parliament for St Ann South Eastern, Lisa Hanna.

In the first instance, $15 million is expected to be used to start the fund, Golding indicated, and that is to be invested to generate additional capital.

“The structure of the trust instrument [constitutes] a grants board which will receive applications for assistance under the fund and make recommendations to the trustee. The grants board will be representative of the different regions into which Jamaica is divided, in terms of the structure of the party and the women’s movement,” said Golding.

The party’s General Secretary Dr Dayton Campbell is expected to appoint the members of the grants board.

“I just want to say how pleased I am that this is moving forward, and I believe it is important that our party workers feel loved and cared for. This is something I think will contribute to that, and it is really an honour to name it after the conceptualiser and founder of our party, Mr O T Fairclough,” said Golding.

The plan for the fund was first announced last September during the leadership contest between then Manchester Central Member of Parliament Peter Bunting and former PNP President Dr Peter Phillips.

Golding had announced then that he had raised $10 million to create an endowment fund to help struggling party workers, but received heavy backlash from members of Phillips’s camp who described the move as “suspicious”.

At that time, he was chairman of Bunting’s ‘Rise United’ campaign.

Bunting eventually lost in his bid to unseat Phillips.

“This is a historic day and we’re very happy to have made it happen. We look forward to this O T Fairclough fund becoming an important institution for the benefit of our party workers,” he said.

In the lead-up to the November 7 internal election, Golding noted that the income from investments “is going to look after our party workers who have served long and hard and who face bad living conditions and other problems in their lives”.

The PNP president is the Member of Parliament for St Andrew Southern, a constituency he inherited in 2016 that has been defined largely by low-income families, crime and underdevelopment.

“When mi see some a our party workers and mi see how dem live, it nuh look right to mi. It’s an embarrassment, really. Our party shouldn’t be in a situation where somebody who a serve di party fi years an’ years an’ years an’ when you check, dem house pop dung and it nuh look good, and people inna yuh neighbourhood say, ‘She, a long time she a work fi PNP and look how fi har thing stay. Them nuh ready yet,’ ” he said on the campaign trail.

The fund, he said, is to not only assist Comrades with infrastructure development but is also for those in need of medical assistance or who wish to start a business.