THE Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) shelled out just over $2.4 million to eight media houses for the live broadcast of Prime Minister Andrew Holness’s contribution to the 2023/24 Budget Debate on Thursday, March 16.

An additional $5 million was spent by the OPM to have four private media houses, including the island’s two major free-to-air-television stations, carry a rebroadcast of the presentation days later, while a fifth media house carried the rebroadcast at no cost as part of a package deal.

In addition, the OPM allocated US$1,000 (approximately $150,000) for projected social media posts related to the broadcast.

Responding to questions from the Jamaica Observer the OPM said it spent no money for the broadcast of the prime minister’s contribution to the 2022/23 Budget Debate as it was able to tap into the media’s public service broadcast obligation and secure partial broadcast.

Explaining the big spend on the rebroadcast of the presentation, the OPM said: “This was as a result of the disruption in the live broadcast presentation for 2023/2024 and the need to inform the citizens of the key aspects of the presentation which outlined the plans of the Government for the 2023/2024 fiscal year.

“The Office of the Prime Minister was mindful that this disruption affected listenership and viewership due to the break in transmission for approximately two hours during the live broadcast. Thus, the decision was taken for the increase of rebroadcasts and social media engagements to allow for dissemination of information to the citizenry on the budget presentation and the plans outlined by the prime minister for 2023/2024.”

Holness’s presentation was interrupted due reportedly to a system failure about 15 minutes into his address.

For about one hour the sitting was suspended as efforts were made to fix the audio system.

During the interruption at least one member of the Government benches could be heard uttering, “This is sabotage.”

There has yet been an official explanation for what caused the audio issues, as well as power outages that, at one point, left the proceedings in darkness.

KLAS, Gospel Ja, Roots FM, Power 106, SunCity Radio, Kool 97 FM, Love 100, Mello FM, and the Observer Group, were the entities contracted by the OPM to carry the live broadcast of the PM’s presentation.

Mello FM, TVJ, CVMTV, Love 101 and JIS were those which were contracted to air the rebroadcast.

Government sources have pointed out that the free-to-air television stations would have carried the prime minister’s broadcast live as usual, with the rebroadcast on a Sunday carrying a big price tag which pushed up the spend to $5 million.