The People’s National Party (PNP) Youth Organization notes with approval the collective outrage on social and traditional media levelled at Member of Parliament (MP) Juliet Holness regarding her shameful comments against Jamaican citizens at a Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) meeting over the weekend.

It is clear that MP Holness does not appreciate the role she plays as a representative of the people and a legislator. Rather than encouraging the Administration, of which she is a senior member, to rectify the long-standing land settlement issues from Jamaica’s colonial past, she sought to score political points by continuing the age-old discrimination against certain Jamaicans by virtue of where they live.

MP Holness must know that depressed living conditions have no political colour and must not be addressed in a partisan way. Of course, in her utterances, she clearly outlined the Government’s policy on land settlement and housing, which is to treat those who are on the margins as political opponents unworthy of any consideration and blame political opponents for their condition.

The PNPYO is grateful for one thing, however, MP Holness has reiterated an important point that we want to affirm, the PNP and the JLP are not the same. The PNP is seized of the historical conditions that have resulted in our land and housing challenges today. That is why it is an indisputable fact that most of the progress and development in housing infrastructure in Jamaica were achieved under a PNP Administration.

It was the Michael Manley-led Administration which established the National Housing Trust in 1976 and set the mandate for the agency to provide housing solutions to low-income earners and the working class. Initiatives such as Operation PRIDE, which saw the development and transfer of 58,000 lots to citizens and the Land Administration and Management Programme (LAMP), which saw the regularisation of land and the provision of titles to citizens who occupied lands for extended periods, were implemented by the PNP. It was also the PNP that established the 1977 Local Improvements (Communities Amenities) Act and made major amendments to the Registration of Titles Act and so much more. Fundamentally, the PNP sees affordable and quality housing as a basic human right. We dare MP Holness to match the JLP’s record in housing and land regularisation to that of the PNP.

The PNP has much to be proud of, in terms of its record on housing. The majority of communities built in this country were because of the deliberate efforts of the party and nothing can change this proud history. In our next Administration the PNPYO is confident that a Prime Minister Mark Golding will expand on our rich tradition and ensure that, rather than discriminate and ridicule those on the margins of society, we provide legislation, policies, and resources to give them dignity in the country of their birth.

If MP Holness has any decency and respect for her office, she would offer an unreserved apology, but we do not hold our breath.

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