GwGAdmin BELFIELD, St Mary:
Opposition Leader Mark Golding on Sunday chastised the Government for what he deemed its failure to protect Jamaicans from the spiralling cost of living, including escalating food and gas prices.
He said that despite urging Prime Minister Andrew Holness and Finance Minister Dr Nigel Clarke to consider increasing the minimum wage to $12,000, which he claimed could have at least eased some of the burden on those hardest hit as they shop day to day for basic food items, not enough protection has been provided to the most vulnerable.
On April 1, the minimum wage was increased from $7,000 to $9,000 per 40-hour workweek and from $9,700 to $10,500 per week for private security guards.
“We tell them that they should get $12,000. We are committed to raise the minimum wage,” Golding, the president of the People’s National Party (PNP), said as he addressed the party’s Belfield divisional conference in St Mary.
“ … When you take a stock, $9,000 divided by 40 in a 40-hour working week is $225. A patty selling for $240. So one hour of work can’t even buy a patty with the minimum wage. Rice gone up, flour gone up, gas gone up, and everything gone up. The price of gas has gone up every week – sometimes $4.50, frequently. When it goes back down, it goes back down by a few cents,” he said.
Arguing that there was a need for more integrity in public life, Golding blasted the Government as being the most corrupt in the history of the country with “scandal after scandal after scandal”.
Turning to education, he lamented the failure of the ministry to satisfactorily address challenges faced by students, especially those at primary school, who are unable to read or write and were disenfranchised without data or devices to access classes during the virtual set-up schools were forced to adopt as a result of the pandemic.
“Our children are our future and to invest in them is to reap great rewards for national developments. What are we doing to the youth dem? The youth dem who leave school and the school system fail them and they don’t have any subject? And they don’t have a trade and them just out there on di corner looking for something to do with him life and get attract to the wrong path?” he asked.
“ … We have to provide those youths with an alternative path. We need a national programme for those youths. Give them remedial education, if they don’t have any basics. Train them in a skill, mentor them and put them towards work. We can’t build our country when so much youths are facing a dismal future and ending up on the wrong side of the law,” said the opposition leader.
Earlier, St Mary Central Member of Parliament Dr Morais Guy lauded the supporters for their large turnout and urged them to support the sitting Belfield Division councillor, Levan Freeman, in the next local government elections.
https://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/lead-stories/20220607/golding-minimum-wage-still-too-low
