The young professional affiliate of the governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), Generation 2000, G2K is accusing the Opposition PNP of attempted piracy and vulgar hypocrisy following PNP President, Mark Golding’s call for the income tax threshhold to be increased to 40-percent.
Mr. Golding made the call on Wednesday.
In a statement on Thursday, G2K President, Shayne Kerr, said in a clear attempt to deceptively hijack the policy direction and intentions of the JLP, the PNP is pretending to forget that earlier this year, Prime Minister Andrew Holness, in a futuristic comment, which was reported in both traditional media and online, told Parliament “it will be done” in reference to another favourable revision upwards of the income tax threshold.
G2K is also taking the PNP to task for what it describes as a U-turn on the issue of the income tax threshold.
According to G2K, put candidly, the PNP’s actions amount to a barefaced, hypocritical, and vulgar attempt to pirate the policies of the JLP and the Government of Prime Minister Andrew Holness.
G2K says it should not be forgotten that when the JLP administration of 2016 moved to increase the income tax threshold to $1.5 million in a bid to put more money into the pockets of Jamaicans, the PNP publicly bashed the plan as “inequitable, unworkable, extraordinarily complex and retrograde”.
G2K says it notes that the JLP executed its plan, which benefited thousands of Jamaicans despite a coordinated and sustained attack against the initiative launched by the PNP and their surrogates in civil society and the media, spawning headlines such as ‘PNP shreds JLP income tax plan’.
G2K says in fact, the PNP’s strong objection to the plan to increase the income tax threshold led to its then General Secretary and now Opposition Spokesman on Finance, Julian Robinson, claiming that the initiative to put more money into the pockets of Jamaicans would “hurt the people more than it will help”.
G2K says the Mark Golding-led PNP’s U-turn and attempt to represent the JLP’s policy direction and intentions as their own further highlights the fact that the PNP is willing to tear down effective policies which are in the interest of the people.
G2K says the PNP President’s comments shows that when unsuccessful in attempting to besmirch people-centric policies, the PNP is prepared to brazenly attempt to say anything which it believes will enable it to curry favour with the masses and regain state power.
The JLP affiliate group says Mark Golding’s utterances also proves that the current Opposition is void of any original plans or ideas to move the country forward and genuinely improve the lives of hardworking Jamaicans.
G2K concluded its statement by saying it’s confident that the JLP and the Government of Prime Minister Holness remain committed to pursuing policies which will enhance the spending power of Jamaicans.
The group is urging the government not to allow what it describes as the PNP’s hypocritical and vulgar politicking to interfere with efforts to advance the interest of the Jamaican people.
