Prime Minister Andrew Holness has rolled out new and revised housing benefits to National Housing Trust (NHT) contributors and beneficiaries. Effective July 1, 2024, the National Housing Trust will make changes to its Home Improvement Loan policy...
Sandwiched between Gordon House and the old Headquarters House in Kingston, Opposition Leader Mark Golding yesterday took the balance of his contribution to the Budget Debate to the streets after his presentation was halted in Parliament by an...
FINANCE AND the Public Service Minister Dr Nigel Clarke has announced a $200,000 increase in the personal income tax threshold, resulting in 24,702 additional Pay As You Earn (PAYE) taxpayers falling outside of the income tax roll. At the same time...
MORE PRESSURE is building on the parliamentary leadership, on the Government side, to remove controversial lawmaker Everald Warmington from the Integrity Commission Oversight Committee (ICOC) and the joint select committee reviewing the Integrity...
The Students’ Loan Bureau (SLB) is projecting a surplus of more than $2.22 billion before taxation for the 2024-2025 financial year. The projected surplus for the upcoming financial year represents a marginal increase over the $2.2 billion the...
The Government is taking steps to put into operation the Sexual Harassment Tribunal in the new parliamentary year, to address sexual harassment complaints. This was announced by Governor General Sir Patrick Allen in his presentation of the Throne...
Leader of Opposition Business in the Senate Peter Bunting says the passage of the Political Ombudsman (Interim) Amendment Act 2024 on Friday has set up the Electoral Commission of Jamaica (ECJ) to fail at its first task to police the conduct of...
A suggestion by the parliamentary Opposition that a panel of three eminent persons be established to adjudicate on matters that arise in the run-up to the local government elections on February 26 did not find favour with the Government. The...
The Government’s attempt to rush a bill through Parliament to subsume the Office of the Political Ombudsman (OPO) into the Electoral Commission of Jamaica (ECJ) was met with strong resistance from a former government minister as well as the...
Accountability campaigner Jeanette Calder believes that while Justice Minister Delroy Chuck’s concern about the time it was taking the Integrity Commission (IC) to conclude its probe into the alleged illicit enrichment of six parliamentarians is valid, his call ...
Government Senator Don Wehby has called for a comprehensive review of why capital budgets are not fully utilised within stipulated time frames. In his contribution to the State of the Nation Debate in the Senate on Friday, Wehby said he was in...
Commuters who travel on the Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) and Montego Bay Metro buses will pay reduced fares over a 24-month period. On January 1, 2024, the regular adult fare charged by the state-owned bus companies will be reduced from $...
Opposition legislator Julian Robinson has contended that the longer the House Speaker holds on to the attorney general’s opinion on the tabling of reports from the auditor general and the Integrity Commission, the more the delay will fuel...
A man whose initials have been given as B.T. by the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM) died of “illness” while in police custody as his case languished in court for 1,460 days – or four years. The oversight body prepared a case...
Nearly nine months have expired since five employees at the HEART/NSTA Trust were suspended by the management of the agency, and to date, the leadership of the training entity is unable to give a definitive timeline as to when its internal probe of...
Justice Minister Delroy Chuck has suggested that the sustained pleas from Chief Justice Bryan Sykes, for forensic and other reports critical to the start of court trials to be presented in a timely manner, cannot be ignored. Chuck’s remarks come...
Persons who breach a curfew without reasonable excuse in an area where a zone of special operation (ZOSO) is established could find themselves facing a fine of $1 million or a period of imprisonment not exceeding six months. This provision forms...
JUSTICE MINISTER Delroy Chuck says that speculation about which parliamentarians are being investigated for illicit enrichment by the Integrity Commission (IC) was not “good” for lawmakers. Chuck made the comments as questions continue to swirl...
DESPITE A $37.2 billion allocation in the Third Supplementary Estimates for payments to public-sector workers in the second year of the compensation review, teachers who did not receive their graduate and remote allowances are yet to receive a...
The parliamentary Opposition has rejected a suggestion by the Constitutional Reform Committee (CRC) that the life of Parliament could be extended by up to two years in the event of a public emergency. While the CRC’s deliberations at this stage are...
Prime Minister Andrew Holness is expected to declare in “short order” his administration’s position on whether Jamaica should accede to the appellate jurisdiction of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ). Minister of Legal and Constitutional Affairs...
In what appeared to be a show of unity among members of parliament across the political divide in Gordon House, lawmakers coalesced yesterday to elevate Juliet Holness to the Speaker’s chair. A second-term member of parliament (MP) for St Andrew...
PRESSURE IS mounting on Speaker of the House of Representatives Marisa Dalrymple-Philibert to step aside as the presiding officer in the Lower House until the eight charges she is facing are dealt with by a court of law. The charges relate to...
Retired Justice Seymour Panton, the chairman of the Integrity Commission (IC), has made it clear that there was no committee of Parliament that can interfere with the ruling by Director of Corruption Prosecution (DCP) Keisha Prince-Kameka against...
With an unprecedented ruling by the Integrity Commission (IC) that Speaker of the House of Representatives Marisa Dalrymple Philibert should face eight counts of corruption-related charges, calls are being made for her to resign. According to the...
