Phillips urges PNP to seek to use power to address inequalities in society

Former People's National Party President Dr Peter Phillips has urged the party not to seek power for its own sake, but to use the authority of government to address education inequalities, low wage jobs and landlessness. 

"We don't want power just to say we have power, we want power because our party has always committed to building a new Jamaica," he said at the party's 86th annual conference in St Andrew on  Sunday.

Citing Michael Manley, a revered former party leader and prime minister, Phillips said: "We don't come to tinker around the social order, we have always been a part of fundamental change".

Saying he believes the PNP is ready for state power, he asserted that the agenda of an incoming Mark Golding administration should be dominated by a focus on removing the "apartheid" system in education, and what he calls the denial of economic opportunities to Jamaicans. 

"It shouldn't matter whether you go to Campion College or Trench Town High... Every Jamaican child should get the same high-quality education no matter what school you go to," he argued. 

He said focus should be on modernising the tools used by farmers, reducing dependency on low-wage jobs and undertaking a massive land titling programme. 

Phillips, meanwhile, slammed the Andrew Holness administration, accusing it of "disrespecting" the constitutional rights of Jamaicans who live in constituencies or local government divisions currently without elected representatives. 

Holness called a by-election for St Ann North Eastern one day after the MP resigned, but has received flak for not announcing one for Trelawny Southern where the MP resigned in September 2023 or in the Morant Bay division in St Thomas where the councillor died more than three months ago. 

Holness says the additional by-elections will be called soon. 

But Phillips, who endorsed the PNP's position not to contest the St Ann "sideshow" election, said the law should be changed to regulate the calling of by-elections "so people stop playing and monkeying around with the constitutional rights of the Jamaican people".

Phillips, who spoke about an hour before he was scheduled to catch a flight, said he could not miss the conference because it would the last such gathering before parliamentary elections, which are due by September 2025.

"I could not miss this conference for anything...there is nothing more inspiring ...like a conference of the People's National Party," he said.

Meanwhile, the Mayor of Kingston Andrew Swaby declared that he is entrenching accountability at the Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation (KSAMC), seven months into the position. 

He said, so far, he has been holding quarterly news conferences, entrenching the publication of contracts and inviting the Integrity Commission to conduct workshops "to make sure that we are doing the right thing the right way because we believe in integrity". 

He also accused the former JLP leadership of the corporation of ignoring bathrooms at markets, saying seven bathroom facilities have been repaired at markets since February. 

He said the corporation is ramping up its efforts to make the capital city cleaner.

As is now customary, the party dedicated significant time to paying tribute to Portia Simpson Miller, the party's first female president and Jamaica's first female prime minister.  

Health challenges have kept her away from the public eye since she retired from politics in 2017. 

Speaker after speaker lauded her and took on her famous campaign rib that "me nuh fraid a nuh gyal, nuh bwoy...".

To wrap, members of the platform marched around the lectern pumping fists to Portia-era campaign songs.

- Jovan Johnson

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