PNP lashes Holness for focus on mourning Queen over local issues Loop Jamaica

Black Immigrant Daily News

The Opposition People’s National Party (PNP) has criticised Prime Minister Andrew Holness over what, they say, is his focus on mourning the death of Queen Elizabeth II instead of tending to pressing issues facing the Jamaican people.

The Government announced an official mourning period of 12 days following the passing of the British monarch, from September 8 to 19, with a Day of Mourning to be observed on September 18.

A period of 10 days of mourning was declared in the United Kingdom.

Queen Elizabeth, who was officially Jamaica’s head of state, died on September 8 at age 96.

Holness, along with the Queen’s representative in Jamaica, Governor General Sir Patrick Allen, is expected to attend the state funeral for the Queen at Westminster Abbey in London on September 19.

But Opposition spokesman on national security, Peter Bunting said he was embarrassed by the Prime Minister’s emphasis on mourning the Queen.

“I am personally embarrassed as a five-time parliamentarian that Jamaica still has the British monarch as head of state. But, my disappointment is even greater that the first Prime Minister born after Independence [Holness] is in such need of ideological decolonisation that Jamaica is mourning the Queen even more than the British people are mourning the Queen,” Bunting said at a PNP constituency meeting in Arnett Gardens, St Andrew on Sunday evening.

“I want to point to the Prime Minister’s exaggerated attention to mourning the queen rather than the pressing issues facing Jamaica today. What about mourning the 1,063 Jamaicans who have been murdered in Jamaica this year already? What about mourning the children in schools without adequate numbers of teachers and facilities because of the failure of this government to prioritise education?” Bunting asked.

He added garbage collection and health care facilities as issues in need of urgent attention from the Government.

The Opposition spokesman suggested that the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade or Jamaica’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom could be sent to represent the country at the funeral.

“The Prime Minister does not have time to attend CARICOM heads of government meetings but is off to stand in line to mourn the Queen,” the former national security minister said.

Meanwhile, president of the PNP Women’s Movement Patricia Duncan Sutherland, while expressing condolences to the royal family, noted that the monarchy was at the root of inequality in Jamaica.

“We want to say condolences to her family and her country because this is not her country. This is our country,” she said.

While stating that, on paper, the Queen, and now her son King Charles III is head of state, Duncan Sutherland said it could not be denied that colour, class and gender were at the centre of inequality here.

“It didn’t happen by chance, it happened because there was colonisation and there was slavery, and that happened because of the United Kingdom,” said Duncan Sutherland.

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