SENIOR members of the governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) used a press conference on Monday to defend the announcement by Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness of a gradual doubling of the national minimum wage to $32,000 weekly over five years, if the party is returned to office after Jamaicans vote on Wednesday.

JLP supporters reacted with shouts and applause to the surprise announcement by Holness at the party’s final mass rally for the election campaign, in Spanish Town, St Catherine, on Sunday night.

While the JLP had indicated in its manifesto a plan to review and increase the minimum wage to deliver a “decent standard of living for every Jamaican”, the party gave no indication of when the increase would take place or that the Holness Administration would increase it by 100 per cent over five years, with a $2,500 increase in the next fiscal year moving it from $16,000 to $18,500.

On Monday, at what is expected to be the party’s final media conference before Jamaicans vote on Wednesday, Campaign Director Dr Christopher Tufton pointed to the party’s manifesto, released just over one week ago, as he rejected claims that the announced hike in the minimum wage was a desperate measure to entice voters.

Tufton also pointed to what the JLP believes is the difference between its minimum wage announcement and the promised hike in the income tax threshold to $3.5 million by the People’s National Party (PNP).

“I want to make it clear: Unlike the others, this was not an afterthought. They have been flip-flopping. Today they are going to fund ‘3.5’ through organic growth, tomorrow it’s going to be by primary surplus; it’s just all over the place,” said Tufton.

“They remind me of strays; forget where they coming from and don’t know where they are going. That’s not the way to run a country, that is a highly risky experiment …if Jamaicans were to consider giving them an opportunity,” added Tufton.

He charged that unlike the PNP, the JLP has been confident in its position.

“We speak with conviction; we have no second thought about what we’re doing,” he said.

Tufton quoted from page 94 of the JLP manifesto as he pointed out that the party had told Jamaicans, “We will build on our record of minimum wage increases by continuing to review cost of living, inflation, as well as our economic and employment conditions, ensuring that work lifts people out of poverty and delivers a decent standard of living for every Jamaican worker.”

According to Tufton, “We can argue over the specifics of it… manifestos are not intended to give specifics, that comes after the fact with a discussion.”

He said Holness, in his wisdom and responsibility to the people of Jamaica, sought to give some specifics on Sunday night — which was quite in order. “And in that respect he indicated his intentions, as the leader under the next Administration, to double the minimum wage over a five-year period,” said Tufton.

When asked how the increase would be possible in light of average economic growth of 0.8 per cent over the last 10 years and the JLP’s plan to lower the income rate from 25 per cent to 15 per cent over time, Tufton stuck to his argument that it was doable.

He argued that, “these things are nuanced by the policy and the soundness of the policy and the leadership”.

According to Tufton, “This Government cannot be accused of being indisciplined in terms of its approach to its macroeconomic and fiscal management.”

Tufton also underscored the point made by Holness at Sunday’s mass rally that with Jamaica at close to full employment, based on those participating in the labour force, the increase in the minimum wage would, “pull others into the labour force, which is necessary [and] has to be also a combination of our capacity as a Government to provide the incentive for training, but also the compensation to attract them in the labour force”.