Groundbreaking Ceremony: Ferry to Rock Pond Pipeline Project in Forrest Hills, St Andrew
Keynote Address
By
Dr the Honourable Andrew Holness ON, PC, MP
Prime Minister of Jamaica
At the
Groundbreaking Ceremony: Ferry to Rock Pond Pipeline Project
Forrest Hills, St Andrew
On
May 27, 2025
______________________________________________________________
Thank you very much.
We have been in the ceremony for a little while so I’m going to be very quick.
Allow me to acknowledge all the officials who are here:
Ministers of government,
Members of Parliament,
Councillors,
Executives of the NWC and all the wonderful people of this community.
This project is long in coming. I, maybe about four years ago, had occasion to interact with several citizens in the community and their greatest complaint was about water. They did complain bitterly about roads but their greatest complaint to the point where I had second thoughts about my own safety was about water and for many of the residents it reached a point of frustration that they could not understand how they could have been given permission to build and many of them would have built lovely facilities, lovely houses, how they would have created a wonderful community and they do not have a reliable access to this basic commodity of water.
And as I listened to the complaints, I came to the conclusion that the residents had passed the level of being patient with government, which whoever is the government, there was an impatience now because in today’s world and in their outlook on life, their expectations when they see other countries having these facilities which they just consider to be basic, why can’t we have basic water? I did attempt to go into a thorough explanation but they were not having it and to be truthful that’s not their job. Their job, as minister pointed out, is to pay the water bill and pay their taxes and government is just to provide water. What can be so difficult about that? Let’s face it, that’s just how it should be, that’s the reality.
The citizens want government that performs and that is what has more than anything else that has led to the kind of decline in public support for government. I’m not talking about political party or partisanship but just how people feel that their government is effective. The inability of government to provide the basic services that when you compare with other countries, particularly our peer group countries, they seem to be doing it better, they seem to have gotten it right.
I left that meeting with a very good understanding that the only way to restore faith in government is to actually provide the water. Maybe at the provision of the water I would have a little bit more receptivity to explain why we are in the position that we are in. So allow me to take five minutes to explain why it is that the land of wood and water does not necessarily have water accessible to all.
Now to be clear and just to set the contextual background, Jamaica has a very high level of water access. Minister Somuda, we are somewhere about what in the 90% in terms of a utility footprint? So in terms of the utility footprint, if you were to take the NWC and the parish council and rural water systems, we would cover about 90% of the population. But then when you drill down to another figure now which you start to talk about reliability, then we have another problem.
And then of course recently another argument has been creeping in about the quality of the water. So far the data that I have seen does not suggest that we have any compromise in the quality of the water over and above what would be considered normal. Now, having said that, that we are not far off from our peer groups and in fact we we are better than most of our peer groups within this region in terms of the access, our water faces several problems. Regardless of how much water we have and we do have significant sources of water, no doubt, no question, the problem is where our population centers are versus where our water sources are, there’s not usually a coincidence and therefore that leads to something called distribution so we have to invest heavily in distribution systems for water. Meaning we have to move the water from where the source is to where the people live.
It’s further compounded not just by that geography but by the geography of terrain. Jamaica is very hilly. We have a mountainous spine running through the country so we have to pump water up hilly courses. This community here, Red Hills, Lees Flat and all the other, Chancery, all these other areas are communities that are up in the hills so apart from the distribution system, we have to pump.
Now once you get into the distribution system that requires pumping, you get into the mechanical distribution of water. And once you’re dealing with a mechanical distribution system, there will be challenges, they will break down but it means in order to mitigate against these breakdowns, you have to have a regular system of maintenance. And that is where largely, not just in water, but in almost every system in the country, we have the problem of maintaining the man-made mechanical parts that cause the system to function properly.
But maintenance is not simply a mechanical issue. Maintenance is a cultural issue as well. We don’t necessarily have a culture of maintenance in Jamaica. Generally, both in terms of the public bureaucracy but the understanding of the public, is that once you lay the pipe, once you lay the road, once you put in the pump, it will last forever. So the expectation is that the pump will work and last forever and that is absolutely not the case. Everything that is manufactured, constructed, has a design life and they will fail before the design life if they are not properly maintained.
But having used up my five minutes to explain that, trying to get into the minds of the public so that they understand the challenges that we have, the dynamics of our water system, is that one, for us to do the actual capital investment, lay the pipe, put in the pump, develop the water source, you have to be able to invest. And in order to maintain it, you have to have the funds for the recurrent expenditure to maintain. And what has happened to Jamaica over the last four or five decades, is that we simply did not have the capital budget or the recurrent budget, our economy was not providing the resources, the wherewithal for the investments.
No doubt, there were good intentions. I urge every citizen here to take up the annual report of the NWC. That’s your duty as a citizen. Go online, we make these things public, and read the intention of the board of governors, the commissioners, and the government in terms of policy direction. Let’s start from 2002 to now and you will see that these projects that we are breaking ground for today are not new projects. They were on the books, many of them, for a long time and they come in the reports, and you see a line item that we’re going to do it this year, and this is the amount of money we’re going to spend. You read it in year one, go to year two. It comes back again. Did it start? Was it procured? Was it because they didn’t have the intention? Was it because they didn’t care? Was it because they’re just lackadaisical? No, they didn’t have the money.
I make this point because we are in the promising season. We are in the season where you’re going to be exposed to good intentions all around. You may even be told that you’re going to be given a horse that can fly, and some people will believe. I go to great lengths to make this point, that it doesn’t matter what you are promised, you have to look at the track record of delivery, number one.
And number two, does the promisor, the man with the good intent, does he have the wherewithal to deliver? I use that word, and it might sound like a big word, it’s an old-time word but it is the appropriate word. Do you have the actual ability to bring the resources together and use those resources to meet your intent? And that is what you have to consider as citizens who are soon to become electors. Will the government that you elect have the wherewithal to deliver projects like these?
Minister Samuda pointed out that we have 58 such projects like we are doing today, for which we are going to break ground for every single one of them because we have to make the people of Jamaica see and understand that for the nine years that you have elected this government, we have demonstrated the wherewithal to be able to deliver not just the projects that we originated, but the projects that were promised by previous administrations. This administration has been delivering them.
I recently had to contemplate, I was drafting a speech that I want to make, and I’ll make it short. I won’t make it here, but I had to contemplate saying to people, we need to have a positive outlook, and we need to have faith. And there’s a biblical definition of faith that I’m certain that all of you here know. Who can tell me that one though? It is the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen, but if you look at that biblical definition, I come here and I’m saying we’re breaking ground and we’re handing over and we’re showing you the solar panels that are in place; have faith because the ultimate objective is to say to the other communities that are looking on at what we are doing here to say have faith but in front of you, why I can say that without feeling as if I’m making you a promise that is empty is that this is what every other community that doesn’t have water is hoping for, but in front of you is the evidence of the delivery of what you hope for.
We are going to be doing just that in our ceremonies that we are going to do when we are breaking ground, commissioning or handing over because it is important that the rest of Jamaica who is not benefiting from this, can have faith that the government that they have elected and will reelect will deliver for them.
It is important because in today’s world you find that you are confronted as a citizen with information that is absolutely negative of which there is no evidence to support it, pure rumor and lies. And how does a government confront that? We confront it by giving people hope of the things they desire and show them the evidence as to how it can be achieved. That is what this administration is doing. We will not join them in the gutter of lies. We will not join them in deceiving the people. We are the first government in the history of Jamaica, uncontestable, I dare anyone to, uncontestable, to have the record of achievements that we have had and will continue to have. We can campaign on achievements.
One achievement, which has not gotten a lot of attention and expectedly so is that poverty in the country has been cut in half from 16.7% in 2021 to 8.2%. Now, when it was the other way, when poverty jumped up to the 16% because of the COVID pandemic, that was in every paper, that was the talk. Even though we had the pandemic, nobody cared about that, government was blamed for it. Now, poverty is down and there would be an attempt to say the figures are not real, it’s not the government do it, people still are suffering.
Yes, this data is not saying that we have eliminated poverty in Jamaica, that’s not what it is saying. What the data is saying is that there is established a consumption threshold in Jamaica, a minimum level of consumption based upon science, your caloric intake that you need to survive so there’s a food basket that you need to consume, minimum utilities that you would need, water light involved, and social services, health, education and so forth. That comprises a basket of consumption and there’s a minimum expenditure on that for every Jamaican person.
I believe the figure is something like 270 odd thousand dollars a year, somewhere in that region, don’t quote me on it. But that minimum figure, which forms what you call the absolute poverty line, in 2021 when we measured it, 16.7% of the adult population fell below that line. When we measured it in 2023, only 8% fell below that line. So yes, there are still persons who are relatively poor, but we can take pride as a country that we have been able to halve the number of persons who would be considered absolutely poor in Jamaica.
That’s an achievement that every PNP, every PIP, every No P and every JLP should be proud of because that’s a national achievement. And if we continue with the fiscal discipline, the proper management of the economy, it is quite possible that we could in our lifetime eliminate absolute poverty in Jamaica. Quite possible. It is not rocket science to do it. So if the measurement, for example, has in a factor to deal with access to water, and we, as we are doing now, provide persons with an amnesty who couldn’t get water before because of their bill, and we make it easier for them to reconnect, we make it easier for them to get back water, what do you think will happen to poverty when they go into the field and ask questions? That element of the basket will go down. The same thing if we reduce the GCT on electricity, if we help people to connect using prepaid electricity and more people have formal access to electricity, what do you think is gonna happen to poverty?
If we increase the benefits under the PATH programme and we make sure that the path programme benefit is not just increased, but properly targeted, that people who should be on it, get on it, what do you think is gonna happen to poverty? Yes, that’s how you deal with poverty. So we shouldn’t politicize it, and unfortunately I have to bring it here, but not in a sense politicize it, but to give people information about it, that this is something that we should all, as a country get behind. Let us eliminate absolute poverty from our country.
Another element of the whole business of treating with poverty, not necessarily just absolute poverty, is income and how do we get people to have income, and the only way to do that is to create employment. And unless you’re going to totally abolish the unemployment data, then I don’t see how anyone can deny that in 2015 the unemployment rate was somewhere in the region of about 13 to 15%, and the last figure I saw is that the unemployment rate is now about 3.5%. So obviously with that trajectory, poverty generally, there are more adults in households that are having income. And then when you look at how the minimum wage has been increased the base income is higher, so obviously poverty generally must decrease.
Now, there are some challenges. We continue to have a high cost of living. No doubt, energy costs, we don’t have any control over that really, inflation big issue and recently I saw a prominent businessman being very critical of the Bank of Jamaica and I just quickly say here that the Bank of Jamaica operates an independent monetary policy. We pass laws to ensure that the Bank of Jamaica is independent, and the Bank of Jamaica’s mandate is to control inflation and there is a reason why the mandate is to control inflation.
There are those who will say, abandon the control of inflation so that we can have growth. I wonder if you see that trade off and look at who is speaking. Who does inflation affect the most? It affects the poor fixed income single mother or father or family. Yes, inflation is the bane, the destruction of everybody so I don’t know whose interest he’s talking about. The interest we are protecting is the interest of the average Jamaican who will feel the pinch if we don’t manage inflation properly and that is why inflation targeting is the mandate of the bank, and that is why we have managed to keep inflation within that target range of 4 to 6%.
Now, there is a certain level of inflation that gives growth that you need it, and that’s a target we have set, 4 to 6%. Now, there is a view in some people’s minds that the only way to get growth is you have to deal with the interest rates. It’s very important, we don’t question that, but the equation of growth has several variables in it. The cost of capital is one which then works out to a trade off in our situation because of foreign exchange issues with inflation.
But the real way to get growth and control inflation is to increase productivity and for more than four decades, the country has avoided this conversation about productivity and we have sought to deal with the inflation problem by always having wages increasing and it is really important to have wages keep a pace and ahead of inflation but that in itself does not solve the problem because every year you’re going back to the negotiating but you’re not getting any growth, so you’re not really creating new value and the only way to create new value is by increasing productivity.
The issue of productivity, again, is very complex, but I want to make a link as I close. The people in this community who are complaining about their water and getting frustrated with government, were effectively saying, you’re not giving me any water so how can I be productive? That is the essence of it? How can I be productive if I have to be redirecting my time to get water? And so the investment that we’re making here today is about creating the infrastructure that will make our people more productive. So if we bring water to your homes, if we give you proper roads, if we make your electricity more reliable, it is not just good for citizens, it’s also good for business and that is why we have this massive program of investing in infrastructure, particularly infrastructure like water, roads, bridges; very important.
So, I hope I’ve been able to make some connections with you this morning, and I hope that you are a little bit more receptive now that the water is on its way and that you will have a better understanding of the unique challenges that Jamaica faces. I also hope that you get to see what my intentions are and that you see that my intentions align with your interests and that I don’t come bearing any horses that can fly. What I am telling you is the practical realities that we all have to deal with.
As I close my presentation, the polls are out. I don’t usually deal with them because I don’t usually speak about polls but there’s an interesting poll about trust and as I reflected, Peter Phillips made his good bye presentation in parliament and he said, you are the politician who went down to Mandeville and tell the people about bitter medicine. It’s a funny thing because myself and Peter Phillips would’ve been the two who would’ve had the greatest experience in dealing with the IMF in that critical time and when I went up and met with the IMF, I was under no illusion as to what was necessary. Some people came and said they’ll get a IMF deal in two weeks and they will be able to take GCT off electricity. Of course, none of that could happen. He himself came back and said when he met with them, it was sobering. So if you’re talking about trust, who is telling you the truth? Who is not sugarcoating and hiding?
Ladies and gentlemen, enjoy the water when it comes.