KINGSTON, Jamaica, CMC—The Andrew Holness administration on Friday used its superior numbers within the Senate to cross the Counties and Parishes (Modification) Invoice 2025, which might make the city of Portmore within the central parish of St. Catherine, Jamaica’s fifteenth parish, amid strenuous objections from senators with the primary opposition Folks’s Nationwide Get together (PNP) and warnings that the laws would “instantly be unconstitutional.”
The PNP additionally reiterated that the Invoice shall be challenged and probably repealed beneath a future PNP Authorities.
The Invoice, which was handed within the Home of Representatives on February 11, was piloted on Friday by the Chief of Authorities Enterprise within the Senate, Senator Kamina Johnson Smith.
Within the debate forward of the vote, Opposition Senator Peter Bunting quoted from a letter from the chairman of the Electoral Fee of Jamaica (ECJ) Earl Jarrett, written on June 18, 2024, to the everlasting secretary within the Ministry of Native Authorities and Group Improvement.
The letter outlined that the proposed Portmore parish boundaries might negatively have an effect on the boundaries of a constituency.
In the meantime – Prime Minister Dr. Andrew Holness has moved to silence what he describes as “noise” surrounding the federal government’s choice.
As he toured sections of Portmore on Friday, Holness mentioned his administration had made each effort, together with widespread public consultations, to engender a clean and non-political transition to parish standing.
However he mentioned the parliamentary opposition stays intent on disrupting and difficult the method.
“So it doesn’t matter what we do. The opposition would oppose it,” he contended.
Noting that there are two varieties of individuals – those that “make issues occur” and those that “forestall issues from occurring” – Holness prompt that his Jamaica Labour Get together authorities is the previous.
