Government can develop any area - Holness
Published:Thursday | October 25, 2018 | 12:00 AMPaul Clarke/Gleaner Writer
Prime Minister Andrew Holness told a town-hall meeting in Kingston on Thursday that there is no area of the country that the Government of Jamaica, which represents the people of Jamaica, cannot bring under its development trajectory. He was attempting to address what he calls the real concerns of the public with regards to the acquisition of lands currently occupied by residents in communities around Heroes Circle for the construction of a new Parliament building.
"Whether it is Central Kingston, Western St Andrew, North West St James or Central St Catherine, the Government has to pay attention to every square inch of Jamaica. And so, we have started the process by putting together a plan to develop this area. The plan includes building a parliament," Holness said.
He continued: "I have been in Parliament now 21 years, and we have tried to improve the condition of the Parliament (Gordon House), but the building just cannot be improved any further. By the way, it was never the intention that Gordon House would have been the permanent place of the Jamaican Parliament. The building is actually the building of the parish council," noted Holness.
The Jamaican Government will foot most of the bill associated with the construction of the new Parliament. However, Holness did not rule out accepting "friendly gifts" from Commonwealth member countries.
Ronald Thwaites, the opposition member of parliament for the Central Kingston constituency in which National Heroes Circle is located, questioned the prime minister on the issue of financing of the project.
Holness responded by saying that most of the financing will be done by the Government with some 'anticipated assistance' from nations of the Commonwealth.
Exercise in sovereignty
According to Holness, he was encouraged by the suggestion from the leader of the opposition, who submitted in a debate on the issue in Parliament that it is an exercise in our sovereignty that the Government of Jamaica should pay for its Parliament, meaning that we shouldn't't borrow money to pay for it.
"That was the intention not to borrow any money to pay for it - when we put together this plan. Also, as it has been the case and custom within the Commonwealth countries, [they] have chipped in to assist friendly countries with the building of the parliament as a symbol of friendship," said Holness.
"So if a country is so minded to say, "We like what you are doing and we want to show our friendship and will contribute this", as we did when the parliament in the UK was rebuilt, we sent the Mace as our contribution, and countries have done that around the world."
"He mentioned that other countries will make contributions but noted that the bulk of the financing will come from the Jamaican people, who will be able to say, 'We built our Parliament'.