Holness says JLP managed inflation better than PNP since Independence

Prime Minister Andrew Holness on Sunday defended his administration’s management of the economy, pinning the sharp increases in food prices on the coronavirus pandemic and global inflation.

Holness said, had it not been for how well his Government navigated the challenges felt around the world, Jamaican consumers would have been paying more for goods.

He was speaking at the Jamaica Labour Party’s (JLP’s) St Ann North Western constituency conference when he addressed the topic amid increasing complaints about the cost of living.

“Food prices skyrocketed. We didn’t cause it. We had nothing to do with it. In fact, we controlled the Government’s economic policy and fiscal policy so well that, if we weren’t doing it, the price rise would be higher,” said Holness, who mentioned that the increase began between 2021 and 2022.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), which measures the monthly change in international prices of a basket of food commodities, through its food price index, said higher quotations across a range of commodities have pushed the index to its highest level in 18 months.

The FAO Food Price Index (FFPI) averaged 127.4 points in October 2024, up two per cent from its revised September level and the highest since April 2023. Price quotations for all commodities in the index, except meat, rose, with vegetable oils recording the largest increase at 7.3 per cent. Compared to historical levels, the FFPI in October was 5.5 per cent higher than its corresponding value a year ago, but remained 20.5 per cent below its peak of 160.2 points reached in March 2022.

“I’m very sympathetic; very understanding to all the families who have been affected by this rise in food prices – inflation. But it was caused by the pandemic. It’s not just Jamaica that was hit by it, [but] the entire world,” said Holness, pointing to the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

In the same breath, he launched a broadside against the opposition People’s National Party (PNP), advancing the view that the JLP is the better manager of inflation.

Holness said, from 1962 to 1972, the average annual inflation under the JLP was 4.7 per cent, while, globally, it stood at 3.3 per cent.

He said between 1972 and 1980 under the PNP led by former Prime Minister Michael Manley, the average inflation almost doubled to 8.8 per cent.

That climbed in the 1980s under former Prime Minister Edward Seaga, Holness said, to 13.5 per cent between 1980 and 1989. He called the period “a very difficult time”.

Further, he said that, from 1989 to 2007, under the leadership of Manley, P.J. Patterson and Portia Simpson Miller, the average inflation was 18.5 per cent.

“But that is bad and not too bad. Whilst Jamaicans were experiencing, on average, 18.5 per cent, if you lived in the United States, your inflation would only be 2.9 per cent. So that means something nuh right,” he said.

He said it was at this point that the consumer purchasing power was “destroyed”.

He said, when the JLP assumed power between 2007 and 2011 under Bruce Golding, the average inflation was 12.3 per cent.

The next PNP administration under Simpson Miller further reduced this between 2011 and 2016 to 6.3 per cent.

He said his administration has brought inflation down, on average, to approximately five per cent.

“So, when you look at inflation in the country, on average, the PNP, whenever they formed the Government, whenever they have a hand on the economy, inflation is higher, meaning that the rise in the price of most things in the basket of goods that we consume, that price rise is higher,” he said.

“In fact, one way to look at it is that, from the Independence of the country, and you look at all the years ... , effectively, they increase the consumer price index cumulatively by 6186.6 per cent. Whilst, for the 20 years that we (JLP) have led the country, we have added 1033.9 per cent to the inflation increase,” the JLP leader said.

He said the PNP cannot compare to the JLP in managing the rise in the price of goods and services.

“We always historically, and will always in the future, do a better job in managing the rise in prices,” Holness said.

kimone.francis@gleanerjm.com