FROM driving a taxi to make ends meet while still a student at Dunoon Park Technical High School to setting up the multi-billion-dollar residential development of Sun Coast Beach Club in Bull Bay, St Thomas, Kevin Frith has always been a go-getter.

Now the man from Tadd Lane in Jones Town, St Andrew, is taking on what is perhaps his toughest challenge yet, breaking the People’s National Party’s (PNP) monopoly on St Andrew South Eastern.

The constituency has been held by three different PNP standard-bearers since 1989, with the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) last winning the seat in 1980 when Allan Isaac polled 11,207 votes to defeat the PNP’s John Junor, who picked up 6,321 votes.

But Frith is undaunted as he takes on the sitting Member of Parliament Julian Robinson in a constituency that most political watchers have ticked as a safe seat for the PNP.

“If you should check my record as a businessman, so far I have not failed at anything that I’ve attempted. I’ve been a successful businessman, single-handedly — except for the persons who support the business along the way, offer advice, et cetera — but I am a known fighter, and when I say fighter, I mean I fight for the things that I want.

“And everything that I do, I do it with good intent, and I focus on the prize, basically. Yes, the PNP has been around for over 36 years in the constituency, but…I am confident that this is their last. They have a couple of months left, basically,” Frith told the Jamaica Observer.

Born and raised in the tough inner-city community of Jones Town, Frith started his school life at the nearby John Mills All-Age before moving to Dunoon. There he developed a love for business and started his side hustle, at a time when he was barely legal to drive, while living with his paternal grandmother and other family members in Jones Town, before violence forced them to flee the community.

“While I was going to high school I had to basically fend for myself. So my first business venture I would say was…a taxi driver. During high school I used to drive a taxi from downtown [Kingston] to Bull Bay. Sometimes I’d go as far as Morant Bay, [St Thomas], but downtown to Bull Bay was my main route,” said Frith.

“We were never born with gold spoon. I’m from a very, very humble beginning,” he added.

Having completed secondary school, Frith entered the working world selling souvenirs before he found his way to the United States as an employee of the Amway company, a global direct selling entity that markets health, beauty, and home care products.

“So I was in the US and basically Amway reached out to me via Facebook and they basically said that they wanted to get somebody who can help them get into the Jamaican market. So I went over there and I was touring their conferences.

“And then I met this lady who showed me a product, which is basically a chemical that you can use to make countertops, and that gave me an idea. So I got back to Jamaica and I started to look at which corporate company I think would be interested in the…branding of a countertop, and I was pressuring Red Stripe and Wray & Nephew to try and get them to buy into it. Wray & Nephew saw the product, loved it, and I have been a contractor to Wray & Nephew from 2013 to date. What we do with Wray & Nephew is we do branding of the bars for them, and the wholesales, and we also do the build-outs,” Frith told the Sunday Observer.

From there he moved into real estate as an investor in a small development in St Ann. That development saw him taking a keen interest in the area and in 2019 Frith saw the potential for St Thomas, with the development of the Southern Coastal Highway Improvement Project.

Now he has opened the first phase of that St Thomas project, which is on a 91-acre property in 12 Miles featuring some 400 residential units and 15,000 square feet of commercial space with a supermarket, an urgent care facility, electric vehicle charging station, and other elements.

With that in the bag, Frith decided to give serious consideration to something that had always interested him, politics.

According to Frith, as a businessman, he’s made donations to both major political parties. He said he’s been approached by people from the PNP and the JLP to join their side.

“But you know, for some reason, I was approached by the other side about becoming a member of the party but I wasn’t sold on their vision and their plans because, quite frankly…I am a no-nonsense businessman, so you know I don’t dabble into foolishness.

“I didn’t see any plans [from the PNP] that caught my attention or even seemed feasible, but when I look at the work of the Jamaica Labour Party Government, and like I said I’m 41 years old and from I have sense until now I have never experienced the kind of prosperity, or the kind of forward movement that I’m seeing the country experiencing now.

“I don’t know what existed before, but from I have sense till now this is the best I’ve seen the country moving forward. So it was like a no-brainer decision of me to decide to join the Jamaica Labour Party, since the opportunity was basically there on both sides,” Frith told the Sunday Observer.

Having donned his green gear and now taking aim at St Andrew South Eastern, Frith assembled a team which, he says, is designed to lead him to victory and take the constituency into a new era of development.

“So how I look at this, I look at it as a company in problem…and I am brought in as the CEO to turn it around, so my approach — as an experienced businessman — is to put the structure in place.

“So I have already started to put my team together who will be focused on different, different areas in the constituency,” added Frith, as he expressed confidence that he will overturn the almost 1,300 votes by which the JLP’s Kari Douglas lost in 2020.

Businessman Kevin Frith walking into what he expects will be a victory in the next general election. (Photo: Naphtali Junior)