ST ELIZABETH, Jamaica — Prime Minister Andrew Holness on Friday urged residents in south St Elizabeth not to choose a government based on their emotions but based on facts.

“As I know about politics, people don’t vote on facts. People vote on emotion. People are following their football team, but the consequences of following the wrong football team are nothing like the consequences of following the wrong government. Good government matters,” Holness said.

Holness was speaking at the official launch of the Pedro Plains Irrigation Expansion Project at the Lionel Densham Aerodrome in St Elizabeth on Friday.

“I urge those people wrestling with their emotions versus the facts to choose the facts. Choose Jamaica,” he added.

The $26 billion Pedro Plains Irrigation Expansion Project will take water from Black River in the parish to irrigate more than 3000 hectares of land across south St Elizabeth.

Holness emphasised that the project, which was announced decades ago, has reached the implementation stage under his administration.

“This is not a small project. So for those people who are understandably impatient because you have been waiting from Michael Manley, understandably impatient because you have been waiting from Danny Buchanan, me good friend, not again, and then Floyd Green come and told you two years ago, and it still has not happened, I can understand the frustration, but it is happening now. Today, we break ground. Today, the project starts. Today the dream that you have had for the last 50 years will materialise, and it will materialise under the administration of Andrew Michael Holness, and these are facts,” he said.

Holness further noted that this irrigation project is to improve the country’s food security, noting that Jamaica has enough land to be self-sufficient. The prime minister further urged farmers to partner with the government in making the dream of food security a reality.

— Vanassa McKenzie