JAMAICA Labour Party (JLP) Leader Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness has declared that his hands are clean, his heart is pure, and he has worked hard for everything he possesses.

“I have never been given anything free; I’ve had to work for anything that I have had. I have said it before, and I will say it again, I don’t know what a gold spoon looks like; it has never been in my mouth,” said Holness as he addressed a large crowd of JLP supporters at the St Andrew East Rural constituency conference in Kintyre on Sunday night.

Holness’s claim of having clean hands and that he has never ripped off the Jamaican people comes at a time when he continues to be dogged by ongoing investigations by anti-corruption agencies and with his 2021 declarations to the Integrity Commission (IC) still uncertified.

Following a damning investigation report made public by the IC in September 2024, Holness took the matter to court. The report was inconclusive but the IC indicated that it had trouble sorting out up to $470 million which was moved through several companies owned and/or operated by Holness.

The IC also confirmed that Holness was investigated for illicit enrichment, something he had denied knowledge of for months.

The matter was referred by the IC to the Financial Investigations Division and Tax Administration Jamaica for further probe while Holness and his attorneys were off to court. Among other things, they were seeking to have sections of the Integrity Commission Act (ICA) and the Corruption Prevention Act declared unconstitutional.

That decision to go to court saw a number of revelations made public during a court hearing last week in which attorneys representing the prime minister failed in their bid to get the judge to block certain disclosures made by the Commission. Some of that information was detailed in a newspaper report on Sunday.

The prime minister’s declaration of clean hands on Sunday also came in the wake of PNP President and Opposition Leader Mark Golding repeatedly accusing the JLP hierarchy of being serially corrupt and of enriching themselves on the backs of the Jamaican people.

Golding has vowed to introduce impeachment legislation and amending the ICA to require all Cabinet ministers to make the summary of their statutory declarations filed with the IC public, if the PNP forms the Government after the upcoming election.

But a fired-up Holness told Labourites on Sunday: “I have no inheritance or any endowment or any trust fund anywhere. Whatever I have, I have worked hard and honestly for it. I have never gained wealth by exploiting the people. And I want to say to you that my ethic is that I believe in working for what I have. By the sweat of my brow I shall eat bread and that is the ethic of the Jamaica Labour Party, we work for what we have.

“In the same way, we are working for the third term, we are not believing and acting as if we are entitled to a third term; there is no entitlement.”

In an obvious swipe at the PNP, which uses ‘Time Come’ as its election slogan, Holness said, “Some people behave like they own Jamaica, it’s just a matter that ‘time come’ for them. It’s not a matter that they work for it, it’s not a matter that they deserve it, it’s not a meritocracy… it’s just so.”

“A part of the challenge that I face is that I represent a disruption, a real disruption for those persons who believe that they have an entitlement to Jamaica. I don’t have any ‘topanaris’ (big shot) in me, I am 100 per cent purebred Jamaican. The struggles that you went through, I went through.

“I know what it is to walk to school. I know what it is to not have a seat in a classroom. I went to Spanish Town Primary with more than 60 pickney in di classroom. I know, and it is because I’ve had those experiences why I believe that I have been able to direct the development of policy to take Jamaica, from what has been considered as a basket case, to now being considered as the case study for a country which has transformed itself without mineral resources, without dictatorship, without external and foreign aid,” declared Holness.

He told the crowd, “When I go to my bed I don’t worry about things. My heart is clean; I have never wished harm on anyone, I have never spoken ill of anyone, and I can say I have never spread a rumour on anyone and I don’t tell lies on people”.

Holness reiterated his claim that this election represents a battle for the minds of the people of Jamaica and charged that the PNP is a risk.

“You are taking a chance with them,” said Holness as he urged Jamaicans not to support a “bad Government” but to instead look at the performance of the JLP since 2016 when making their decision.

He expressed confidence that voters will make the right choice after reading the booklet which contains what the JLP has descried as “256 solid achievements” since it returned to office after the February 2016 General Election. Holness also brushed aside criticism that the launch of the book, and the distribution on the streets of Jamaica, including his presence in Half-Way-Tree in peak hour traffic, was a public relations stunt.

“Think deeply about what that book is. That book is the expression of the Jamaica Labour Party’s respect for you. We respect you, we know that you will take up that book of performance and you will read it and you will make your own logical conclusion as to who is best to run this country,” declared Holness.

MP for St Andrew East Rural constituency Juliet Holness at a conference in Kintyre on Sunday. (Photo: Naphtali Junior)

Chairman of the JLP Campaign Committee, Health and Wellness Minister Dr Christopher Tufton, with a copy of the party’s achievements book at the St Andrew East Rural constituency conference in Kintyre on Sunday. (Photo: Naphtali Junior)