Portia sent my kids to university, mom boasts

Donna Hill has come to the defence of Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller against critics who say she has done nothing for people in her South West St Andrew constituency.

Hill has lived in the constituency all her life. A self-styled proud mother of two, Brown said that were it not for the goodness of Simpson Miller, her children might not have benefited from tertiary education.

"I have two children who have made it to university courtesy of Mrs Simpson Miller," Hill told The Gleaner while displaying a photograph of her daughter, who recently graduated from the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, with a business management degree.

Her son, she said, is a final-year student at the UWI, reading for a degree in economics.

She said her son went to Haile Selassie High and left with nine CXCs and that her daughter was the beneficiary of a scholarship having excelled at GSAT.

Hill was among the persons who nominated Simpson Miller for a 10th term as member of parliament (MP) in the constituency which she has held since 1976.

PROGRAMMES IN PLACE

"If you come and in the situation where you cannot pay, she will assist you," said Hill, who is from Majesty Gardens, told The Gleaner.

"Education, that is her. A lot of children who went to school and didn't get CXCs, she has programmes in place for those children to go back to school," said Hill.

She told The Gleaner that she feels hurt when people say Simpson Miller has not performed well as an MP.

"She has done so much for this country. She has given this country her all and I would like for her to continue what she started," Hill said.

Simpson Miller has been nominated to contest South West St Andrew against the Jamaica Labour Party's Victor Hyde.

"Tell them to come and go on a tour with me and look at the many housing schemes that I have put in place, houses for the people in this constituency. Tell them to check the roads in South West St Andrew. Tell them to check the education programme of this MP, paying millions of dollars for students, to keep them in universities or colleges. My record is clear," Simpson Miller said shortly after being nominated at the Greenwich All Age School on Tuesday.

She said that if she was not doing anything to benefit the people, the thousands who turned out for nomination day activities would not have done so.

Simpson Miller said South West St Andrew residents are members of her family.