Bunting blames economic blues for migration
Published:Tuesday | August 30, 2022 | 12:09 AMAlbert Ferguson/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
Senator Peter Bunting, leader of opposition business in the Senate, said many Jamaicans are being driven to seek out better opportunities overseas because of their unsatisfactory standard of living locally.
Bunting noted that this was being witnessed in the number of teachers, nurses, police officers and other professionals migrating in search of better economic opportunities and raising concern about a brain drain.
“The status quo is not good for the majority of our people. The majority of our people remain over-represented in poverty and under-represented in income, wealth, status and acceptance,” said Bunting, who was speaking at the annual regional executive council meeting of Region Five of the People’s National Party (PNP) at the Brompton Primary School in St Elizabeth.
The former Manchester Central member of parliament argued that “when truth is spoken to power, power is not going to welcome it; power is going to be quite uncomfortable”.
Bunting added that power concedes nothing without a demand, and as a party, the PNP should not back down from speaking the truth or apologise for demanding better for Jamaicans.
Acknowledging that it is important to pay down the country’s debt and balance its books, Bunting lamented that if those actions do not deal with the conditions of the people, it is only a matter of maintaining the existing and unfavourable status quo.
“If the people are in crisis, then any democratic society must attempt to cushion the crisis that the people are in,” the senator explained, in highlighting the fact that the average cost of living in Jamaica is about $80,000 per month while the minimum wage is $9,000 per week or $36,000 per month.
Bunting also pointed out that, effective August 22, customers of the Jamaica Public Service Company will be paying more for electricity after a recent rate review.
“That is why the party leader (Mark Golding) has been advocating for some measures to cushion that crisis, to take some of the tax off the gas so that the transportation costs can come down and take away the pressure off the society,” said Bunting.