Come straight, Golding tells Rev Roper
Opposition Leader Bruce Golding on Tuesday said that the Rev Garnett Roper was a member of the People’s National Party’s (PNP’s) Policy Committee who was “parading around as a political analyst” and advised Roper to declare his political leanings so that people can make informed decisions on his pronouncements.
Golding told journalists at a news briefing at the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) headquarters on Belmont Road, Kingston, that the most strident criticism of his exposure of the Trafigura controversy had come from Roper, the pastor of the Portmore Missionary Church.
“Let me just, as an aside, say one thing about Rev Roper, because his criticisms of me have been made with undeviating consistency for about 15 or 20 years. I am going to appeal to people, let’s come straight,” Golding urged.
“Whenever I say anything, people know the platform from which I speak,” he said. “I am a politician and a Labourite and the leader of the Jamaica Labour Party. Therefore, you know exactly what I am saying, and you know what biases to look for, and you know how to sift what I am doing or what I am saying to see what is substantial and what is truthful. It is time that the Rev Garnett Roper come out and declare himself.
“I am telling you that he is a member of the People’s National Party’s Policy Committee and I have documentation to prove it as well,” said Golding. “And it is about time that people like Rev Roper come out and say, ‘now look, this is where I am, this is where I am coming from’, and then proceed to make whatever criticisms he wants; however trenchant.
“I really am amazed sometimes that he is being parading around on the media as a political analyst, when what he is, is a member of the PNP, a fairly prominent member of the PNP serving on their policy committee,” the Opposition
leader said.