‘JLP sabotaged Portmore’ - Phillips lashes Labourites over management of Sunshine City; Crawford says PNP is ‘father’ of municipality
Published:Wednesday | February 19, 2020 | 12:00 AMRomario Scott/Gleaner Writer
President of the People’s National Party (PNP), Dr Peter Phillips, attacked the Andrew Holness administration on Sunday, charging that it had sabotaged Portmore, the bustling dormitory and commercial St Catherine town.
Holness, who was in Portmore a week earlier, said that the municipality would be made a priority in his next term in office.
He said that the Government would be moving to build infrastructure that would transform Portmore into a city or a parish.
Phillips, who was addressing a PNP meeting at Cedar Grove Academy in the municipality on Sunday, argued that Portmore had been a victim of the ruling Jamaica Labour Party.
“Portmore has been deliberately, systematically sabotaged by the Jamaica Labour Party government,” Phillips declared.
Contract shelved
Phillips claimed that the former PNP administration left a contract to be signed for a technology park to be established in Naggo Head that would have been managed by the Port Authority of Jamaica.
“It was abandoned. There was a scaling down and no contract, and the contract that was awarded abandoned and the Portmore technology park was abandoned by the Jamaica Labour Party,” the PNP president told Comrades.
Phillips also said that the Holness administration shelved plans and financing left in place by the former PNP administration to build a transportation centre in Portmore.
“Again, the minute dem come in, dem abandon it. People of Portmore affi continue stand up in hot sun and rain fi tek JUTC … ,” he said.
Meanwhile, PNP vice-president Damion Crawford also went after the Holness administration and critics of his party who claimed it has done too little for Portmore, even though the municipality has been a bastion of political support for decades.
PNP’s handiwork
“So when I hear when Portmore people a talk ‘bout, ‘Oh, dem build road, dem build road,’ I check the records, and when I look on that overhead bridge we see going to Three Miles, Andrew Holness is not the father.
“When I look pon Constant Spring Road, Andrew Holness is not the father. When I look pon the road in Westmoreland, Andrew Holness is not the father, and the houses that were built in Portmore, Andrew Holness is not the father … . The People’s National Party is father of Portmore,” Crawford declared.
Portmore has been dominated by the PNP for more than 35 years. Currently, the JLP holds only one seat in the municipality – St Catherine East Central.
However, the PNP has signalled that they will win it at the next general election to give the party a clean sweep in Portmore.
The JLP, on the other hand, has been stepping up pressure on Colin Fagan, who currently holds another Portmore seat, St Catherine South East, as it moves to increase its majority in the Sunshine City.