Affordable housing promise

People’s National Party (PNP) President Mark Golding has vowed that a new Government led by him will make lands available to the National Housing Trust (NHT) for qualified contributors, to allow them to build their own homes.

During what is expected to be the PNP’s final annual conference before national polls are constitutionally due in September 2025, Golding told the country yesterday that the next PNP Government would also restore the core mandate of the NHT.

“We will stop the extraction of funds from the NHT. We will return to providing affordable houses for our people,” Golding, who is also leader of the Opposition, declared to resounding applause from a packed National Arena.

Since 2013, respective PNP and Jamaica Labour Party administrations have been pulling about $11 billion annually from the NHT for budgetary support.

The PNP president also proposed a comprehensive review of laws relating to housing to create more opportunities for Jamaicans to purchase affordable houses.

Golding said an administration led by him would also roll out what he described as “The Portia Initiative”, named after former PNP President and Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller.

Under this plan, Golding said the PNP would carry out a programme for the orderly renewal and transformation of infrastructure in all areas.

“This programme will drive policies that ‘Sista P’ stood for: improving infrastructure in old housing schemes, tearing down zinc fences in communities and replacing them with concrete walls, completing the infrastructure and land titling for existing land tenure regularising schemes and rolling out new ones to bring hope and decent living conditions in areas of social neglect,” Golding said.

At the same time, the PNP says it will be pursuing a new policy to encourage Jamaican teachers to stay in the country if it forms the next Government.

According to Golding, the PNP will introduce a student loan forgiveness programme for the country’s teachers based on their years of service in the classroom.

“What we have in mind is that one year of payments on their student loan will be forgiven for every year they remain employed in the public-education system,” he said.

Committing to making student loans more borrower-friendly, Golding said graduates would only begin to repay their loans after obtaining employment.

He said monthly payments would be capped at an affordable percentage of the graduate’s monthly income.

“In times between jobs, payment will be deferred and tacked on to the back end of the loan period, without penalties,” he said.

Turning to the Data Protection Act, the PNP president said he was concerned about “the insidious abuse” of the law by state officials who restrict disclosure of potentially damning information in which there is strong and legitimate public interest.

“First, it was to hide the details about years of waste of taxpayers’ money to make massive rental payments for an unoccupied building to the private owner,” said Golding, adding that the data protection law was also used to conceal the salaries being paid to both the acting director of public prosecutions (DPP) and the former DPP.

Taking aim at the Government for delaying the tabling of an Integrity Commission (IC) investigation report sent to Parliament on September 5, Golding said that under the next PNP administration, the law would be changed to allow all IC reports to be published on the Parliament’s website within 24 hours of being sent to the legislature.

edmond.campbell@gleanerjm.com

Some proposals made by Golding:

· The PNP will invest in regularising electricity usage in communities where throw-ups are the norm, with the State underwriting most of the cost of rewiring, inspection, and certification.

· The PNP will provide solar capacity pooled into community micro-grids to reduce household electricity bills among newly regularised customers.

· The PNP portfolio teams will work together to establish a single authority for the efficient permitting of entertainment events.

· The PNP will establish 24-hour entertainment zones in suitable locations and develop balanced and clear guidelines under the Noise Abatement Act for nighttime entertainment in communities.

· The PNP proposed that HEART NSTA would match, dollar for dollar, the amount that a business spent on training.