Profile

A fresh entrance. A renewed sense of pride. The new driveway at Trench Town Polytechnic College is more than just an upgrade it’s an investment in our young people and their future. Made possible through allocation from TPDCo, this improvement helps create a more welcoming and functional space for students, staff, and the wider community. Because every step forward in education infrastructure is a step toward a stronger Jamaica.

If we are to understand many of the challenges Jamaica faces today, we must honestly reflect on the policy decisions made in the 1990s by the People’s National Party, which led to the Financial Sector Adjustment Company crisis. When the financial sector collapsed, the government at the time created FINSAC to bail out failing institutions, and that intervention cost the country approximately 42 percent of our entire economy. As a result, Jamaica’s national debt rose dramatically, from about 72 percent of GDP to nearly 130 percent within a few years. At one point, almost 70 percent of the taxes collected by the government had to be used simply to pay interest on that debt. This meant there was very little money left to maintain roads, repair hospitals, build schools, or invest in the infrastructure our people depend on every day. For many years, the country had to focus on stabilizing the economy and restoring fiscal discipline so that we could rebuild our financial strength. My commitment is to ensure that Jamaica never returns to those kinds of policy decisions that placed such a heavy burden on our people and our economy.