Choose Employment over Crime – PM Holness
Prime Minister Andrew Holness has used the occasion of Labour Day to encourage all Jamaicans to commit to doing work and seeking employment over crime.
“I want every single able bodied Jamaican to commit to doing work and to commit to seeking employment over idleness or crime. We are providing you with the jobs, we are growing the economy and that is the way in which we are going to provide prosperity for all and remove poverty from our land,” stated Prime Minister Holness.
The Prime Minister was was speaking at the Cumberland Health Centre in Spanish Town, on Wednesday, (May 23), one of two National Labour Day projects.
Prime Minister Holness said labour is important to the creation of wealth and prosperity for the nation.
“Labour is the innate God given gift to you. Everybody has the capacity of labour. You use labour to convert the other God given factors of production the land, the air, the minerals everything. Your labour is absolutely important to the creation of wealth and prosperity for the nation,” intimated Prime Minister Holness.
Mr. Holness contends that the policy of the Government is to ensure that every Jamaican is involved in some form of work.
As part of this policy he said that the Jamaica National Service Corp was established.
“It is a means of taking in youngsters from your community who would probably be elsewhere doing something probably destructive. A part of the programme is for them to give back. So we bring them into the army where they are learning critical life skills, critical employment skills, they are earning a stipend at the same time but we require them to give back and they are giving back through their labour to the benefit of the country,” said Prime Minister Holness.
Mr. Holness further said that the key of labour is to get labour into work and employment which will result in prosperity for the land.