No more ‘almshouse system’
MOY HALL, St James – Opposition leader Bruce Golding says the reason so many Jamaicans – particularly the youth – are not participating in the electoral process is because the present political system has alienated them.
“There is a growing number of persons who draw back and nuh business with politics again, especially the young people,” Golding said.
The Jamaica Labour Party leader, who made the remarks as he was touring Moy Hall on Saturday, noted that fewer people were casting their votes because they “look at the politics and them no see nothing inna it”.
Added Golding: “You can’t blame them because the politics has moved further and further away from the people.”
Golding noted that under the current political system, pleas from both Opposition and government backbench parliamentarians for infrastructural work to be done in their respective constituencies often “fell on deaf ears”.
These parliamentary representatives, the Opposition leader said, were reduced to begging government ministers repeatedly for grants for infrastructure development in their constituencies.
“When you go to Parliament and you see the government line up over that side, and you are in the Opposition or you are even a backbencher on the government side, you discover that you don’t have no power.
Added Golding: “It is a almshouse system, and I am going to break it up any day I take over the government of this country”.
Meanwhile, he reiterated that a future JLP government would allocate 2.5 per cent of the national budget to develop projects across the 60 constituencies.
An energetic Golding, West Central St James MP Clive Mullings and other party officials walked through a number of communities on Saturday, at times oblivious to the intermittent drizzle. They toured communities such as Pitfour, Granville, Tucker, Tower Hill, Mount Salem, Catherine Hall and Retirement.
At the end of the day-long tour, Golding cut the ribbon to officially declare Mullings’ constituency office in Barnett, Montego Bay open.