Juliet Holness, the member of parliament for East Rural St Andrew, on Sunday bragged about the Jamaica Labour Party’s (JLP) housing development progress while lashing out at the People’s National Party (PNP).

Holness claimed that the Norman Manley-founded organisation built many substandard houses during their time as government and allowed billions of dollars to go to waste.

Holness was speaking at a Divisional conference on Sunday, hosted by JLP Councillor for the Norbrook Division, Susan Senior, at the Constant Spring Primary and Junior High School in St Andrew.

Earlier this month during a contribution to the 2022-2023 State of the Constituency Debate, Tova Hamilton, first-time MP in the former PNP stronghold of Trelawny Northern, criticised the PNP’s controversial Programme for the Resettlement and Integrated Development Enterprise (Operation PRIDE) which they established in 1994 when in power.

Hamilton stressed that more than 20 years ago, some of the people in her constituency made deposits on Government-owned lands for houses under the programme, which they are yet to receive. She said the project was daunted by overruns, corruption, nepotism and the wrong choices in terms of where the houses were to be built.

Holness, the wife of Prime Minister Andrew Holness, protested on Sunday that the JLP government inherited billions of dollars in debt due to Operation Pride.

“When we took over government, the Housing Agency of Jamaica (HAJ) owed $3.5 billion. That was because under Operation Pride, the PNP borrowed over $2.5 billion. They built some houses in Greater Portmore. The people in Greater Portmore – they took their titles for their houses to the bank and the National Housing Trust (NHT) and used your titles to borrow money so that they could build some Operation Pride houses. It took the Jamaica Labour Party for those people to get yields for their houses for over ten years.

“They lived in the house, pay fi di house but dem nuh own no title because the PNP tek di titles and borrow money. We paid off most of the debt and we owe less than $500 million. We came and saw debt of billions and most of it has been repaid by good leadership of the Jamaica Labour Party,” Holness said.

According to Holness, when the audit was done on Operation Pride, it was revealed that $16 billion was spent on the programme, but auditors could only find houses valued at $8 billion.

“The other $8 billion vanished. Though we work to pay off the debt and to bring our country back, nuff of the people who support the PNP, they know they would rather live under this Jamaica Labour Party government. The Jamaica Labour Party practices the mantra ‘work diligently, creatively, think generously and honestly, so that Jamaica may increase in beauty, fellowship and prosperity’. Continue to vote got JLP.

She added: “HAJ finally start build house like crazy. I checked over St Catherine where over 40 people paid their deposits over ten years ago. Sixteen hundred houses are being built at St Catherine Estates, of which some of those people who paid the PNP their deposit finally getting a house after many years. Several houses are being built, hundreds across Jamaica. Another development is going on in St James under our housing operation.”