Councillor blasts handout-hungry Comrades
Published:Wednesday | May 22, 2019 | 12:25 AMTamara Bailey/Gleaner Writer
MANDEVILLE, Manchester:
A People’s National Party (PNP) official has chided party supporters who are hungry for handouts, warning them that ingratitude and a syndrome of dependency would have damaging consequences for individuals and the country.
“Some a we get house and still a cuss PNP. We get roadwork, Christmas work, and we still complain. We are becoming an ungrateful people, and unless [we stem] this ungratefulness in the country, we will not get to where we need to get,” said Donovan Mitchell, councillor of the Royal Flat division in Manchester and mayor of Mandeville.
“Some get $700,000 fi funeral package and still vex say dem nuh get MP (member of parliament) $5,000 … . Every day some gone get facial and foot-cial, and I am saying to Comrades, change the mind. We cyaan nyam everything weh we get. You haffi save some and invest some. Any credit union, you can put down a $1,000 and $2,000 ... . Every day you cyan come for a fish and nyam off that fish and you come back again for another fish .”
Mitchell, speaking at a party Divisional Conference on May 19 at Manchester High School in Mandeville, urged PNP members and enthusiasts to galvanise support with a general election due in less than two years.
The PNP lost the February 2016 general election in a close 33-30 contest to the now-ruling Jamaica Labour Party. Since then, the PNP has lost two seats to the JLP – South East St Mary and East Portland.
Peter Bunting, former general secretary of the PNP, recently urged Comrades to reconnect with youth voters.
“The young people today don’t have much interest in us telling them what Norman Manley did, and what Michael did, and what P.J. did, and what Portia did,” said Bunting, in reference to former PNP leaders. “They are not focused on the history and the past; they are focused on the present and the future, and we have to learn to engage them in the ways they want to be engaged.”
In a similar vein, Mitchell called for the supporters to be devoted to the party and not switch lanes.
“… We have some work to do as it concerns the engaging of the minds. If we are not engaging, we can’t move forward ,” said Mitchell, who conceded that the PNP was in desperate need of reorganisation for growth to take place.
“If you nuh set yard good, yard can’t tan good, and if yuh nuh train pickney right, pickney nah listen to we. ”