People’s National Party (PNP) President Mark Golding on Sunday sought to distance the Opposition party from controversial leaked voice notes discussing strategies against the National Reconstruction and Resilience Authority (NaRRA), insisting the recordings reflected the personal views of individuals and not official party policy.

However, the party’s explanation came only in a recorded video statement after a highly anticipated opportunity for the PNP to answer questions from the media vanished when it cancelled its planned post-National Executive Council (NEC) press briefing on Sunday.

Speaking in the video released following the NEC meeting, Golding said the party had withheld comment until it had completed its own review of the matter.

“Our review is now complete and it established three things,” Golding said.

“Firstly, the conversation in which those leaked recordings took place did not happen in any official party forum. Secondly, no party officer, no officer of the party participated in that discussion, and thirdly, the PNP has no official NEC or executive WhatsApp group. That doesn’t exist, and certainly not where party policy is made,” he said.

He further maintained that the conversations were not representative of the Opposition’s official position.

“This was a WhatsApp group formed by individuals within the party, and the views expressed were their personal views. So those recordings do not represent the official position of the PNP or any policy of the PNP,” Golding said.

“The PNP takes responsibility for its official positions. Those are set by our constitutional organs, such as this National Executive Council or the Executive Committee of the party, and those that are communicated by our authorised representatives and shown through our public actions or through our public media outlets, social media outlets, and so on,” he added.

The video statement came after journalists arrived at The University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, for what had been billed as a post-NEC media briefing featuring Golding, party Chairman Dr Angela Brown Burke, General Secretary Dr Dayton Campbell, and other senior leaders. The briefing had been scheduled for 3:30 pm following the executive council meeting.

Instead, members of the media were informed of a two-hour delay and were advised that the planned press briefing had been cancelled, with the party indicating that a video statement would be issued instead.

The cancellation meant the Opposition missed what many had viewed as its first major opportunity to directly answer questions about the leaked recordings that have dominated the political landscape for much of the past week.

The recordings, which have circulated widely on social media and whose authenticity has not been independently verified, allegedly capture two members of the PNP discussing political strategies surrounding NaRRA, the agency established by the Government to coordinate Jamaica’s recovery and reconstruction following Hurricane Melissa.

One of the recordings appears to suggest that the authority should be viewed through a political lens because of the electoral benefit it could bring to the governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), while another discusses ways to undermine public confidence in NaRRA Chief Executive Officer Major General (Ret’d) Antony Anderson despite acknowledging his credibility.

The recordings have prompted sharp criticism from the governing JLP, which accused the Opposition of placing partisan interests above the country’s recovery efforts. Jamaicans For Justice was the only civil society group to have weighed in, urging the PNP to distance itself from any suggestion that politics should interfere with national reconstruction.

Against that backdrop, Sunday’s NEC meeting had been expected to provide clarity on the party’s position and whether it intended to investigate the circumstances surrounding the leaked conversations.

Ahead of the meeting, the PNP had advised that the post-NEC briefing would provide “updates from the NEC and address recent reports circulating in the public domain”, adding that members of the media would have an opportunity to pose questions to the party’s leadership on those matters and other issues.