Full Statement | Holness says PNP gov't rejected UK prison offer

Prime Minister Andrew Holness has issued a statement maintaining his position that his administration did not reject the 2015 offer by the United Kingdom to help build a prison here.

The Prime Minister made the statement on Friday during a digital press conference.

He was asked: How do you measure your effort to improve the prison condition since you rejected the offer by the British to help in building a facility here?

In responding Holness said: "Just to be clear, I was not the government at the time when the offer was rejected. Just to be clear."

Since then, Foreign Affairs Minister Kamina Johnson Smith has tweeted that Holness gave an honest answer.

And in a statement on Sunday night, the prime minister reaffirmed his position.

"From my perspective and for all intents and purposes, the offer was effectively already rejected by the PNP during their term. When the issue was raised to our Ministers, they reaffirmed the position we held in Opposition, that the 2015 offer and MOU should be rejected," he said, referring to the People's National Party.

See Holness' full statement below:

In 2015, the Guardian Newspaper in the UK reported that the then PNP Administration signed an MOU with the Government of the United Kingdom to build a prison in Jamaica as part of a wider prisoner transfer programme. This became a matter discussed widely in the public and in the Parliament of Jamaica.

As Leader of the Opposition then, I opposed the prisoner transfer proposal, and the notion of partnering with the UK to build prisons. It was my view that given the context of our historical relationship, building schools or some other venture of that nature would be more uplifting and meaningful for Jamaica.

Of lesser importance, but still considered in our position, the financial details did not make sense to us. This was a view shared by many Jamaicans, even the PNPYO wrote publicly urging the PNP to reject the MOU.

Given the overwhelming public opposition to the offer formalized in the MOU, the PNP apparently backed away from the deal saying they did not sign an MOU. They did not make it part of their 2016 election campaign.

In fact, the then Minister of National Security, promised in a statement to Parliament that he would set up a special select committee to oversee the MOU. There was however, never any report of their work in this regard. From the known actions of the PNP, or lack thereof, one could conclude that the PNP had in fact rejected the 2015 offer set out in the MOU and this accorded with our position as the Opposition at the time.

After the Jamaica Labour Party won the election in 2016, certain statements were made in the press indicating that the 2015 offer was still available and probes were made around the subject. I cannot speak for what the PNP accepts as an offer between governments, however the standard of this Government is that statements in the press or general discussions even with ministry officials do not amount to offers between countries.

When asked by PNP Senator Lambert Brown, if we were aware of an offer from the UK government to assist Jamaica in building a maximum security prison to which some Jamaican nationals now incarcerated in UK prisons may be transferred to complete their sentence, the answer provided by Minister Johnson Smith was, “Yes. An MOU was signed under the last (PNP) Administration”. The inactive 2015 offer to which Minister Johnson Smith referred, was the only offer of which we were, and are, aware.

There was no engagement of the bilateral process to renew or reopen the offer and certainly there was no new offer or MOU before us to consider. We inherited a matter that was not pursued by the former PNP administration, and for which we had previously declared that we would not ourselves pursue. As Minister Johnson Smith said when asked about negotiations, her response was “the matter is closed”.

From my perspective and for all intents and purposes, the offer was effectively already rejected by the PNP during their term. When the issue was raised to our Ministers, they reaffirmed the position we held in Opposition, that the 2015 offer and MOU should be rejected.

So that there is no doubt, if a new offer were made to build a prison and accept prisoner exchanges, given the historical context of the relationship with the UK, I would still maintain my position that Jamaica would be better served building better schools, as that would certainly obviate the need to build more prisons.

This whole saga is particularly disturbing. Is the PNP and their operatives arguing that if they were government today, they would have reopened the MOU and accepted it?

Were they planning to trick the electorate in 2016 by pretending to walk away from the MOU only to resurrect it if they had won?

If the PNP and their agents are arguing that the conditions of prisons today is a result of the JLP Government not pursing the offer, then they must also tell the nation what they did to advance the building of the prison under the deal between September 2015 and February 2016, since the offer was still alive to them? These are questions that require definitive answers from the PNP.

The conditions in our prisons are in need of urgent attention, they pose a human dignity challenge to the conscience of our society. We have made allocations in our Budget to address some of the infrastructure issues in correctional institutions.

The fall off in economic activity due to the COVID19 pandemic, has caused us to revise down these projected expenditure allocations. Nevertheless, government is committed to improving the conditions of our prisons and as our economy recovers, we will increase our spending to ensure the human rights and dignity of all Jamaicans. We are also exploring several other options to facilitate capital investment in our prison infrastructure.

As a politically independent people, we must truly take on the independence mindset. The means to do this comes through building our economic power and always having a clear vision as to the priorities that are in our best interest."

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