Senator Matthew Samuda on Sunday received ringing endorsement from the governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) as its candidate to contest the St Ann North Eastern constituency at the next general election and, in an energetic address to supporters, listed a number of infrastructure development projects he vowed to tackle and complete.

Samuda also elicited loud, sustained applause from bell-ringing, horn-blowing Labourites packed inside Marcus Garvey High School auditorium in St Ann’s Bay when he told Prime Minister Andrew Holness that he and his four councillors will deliver at least 12,000 votes to maintain the JLP’s hold on the constituency.

“We will have to go house to house and re-engage our voters. We can’t be shy about meeting with our people,” Samuda said in his address to the constituency conference.

“Top Exchange is going to have water; we’re going to ensure that Breadnut Hill, that has not had water for 30 years, is going to have water; we’re going to ensure that Thompson Town will get the new pump and will have water,” Samuda said, adding that work will be done in a number of other communities, among them Lime Hall, Chalky Hill, and Seville Heights.

Additionally, Samuda said, on the prime minister’s instruction that “the people of St Ann must have appropriate beach access”, Priory beach will be developed “and he also told me we must open Little Dunn’s River before Christmas”.

Samuda also said that Holness was not comfortable with the conditions facing vendors in the constituency, therefore work will be done to upgrade Pineapple and Ocho Rios Markets.

“We’re not asking you to vote for us us because we seh ‘show’ [short for the JLP’s hail slogan ‘Shower’], we’re asking you to vote for us because we have delivered,” Samuda told the wildly cheering crowd.

“We asking you to vote for us because this country now has the lowest unemployment rate in history; we asking you to vote for us because we have brought down the [national] debt; we asking you to vote for us because we have the plans; we asking you to vote for us because we have paved more roads than any other government in the history of this country; we asking you to vote for us because we have built more classrooms than any other government in this country; we asking you to vote for us because we have the best prime minister this country has ever seen in Andrew Michael Holness,” Samuda declared, triggering more applause, horn-blowing and shouts of “Yes sah!”