Strenuous attempts by Dr Grace McLean to justify the spending of more than $400,000 in 2018 to stage a surprise birthday party for Fritz Pinnock, the former president of the Caribbean Maritime University (CMU), were rejected on Tuesday by the hard-...
PRIME MINISTER Andrew Holness has pushed back at suggestions that he has demonstrated dictatorial tendencies in his leadership. Debating an extension of the states of emergency in the Kingston Western and Central police divisions yesterday, newly...
THE POVERTY rate declined by 40 per cent to 12.6 per cent in 2018, representing the lowest percentage recorded in 10 years, Finance and the Public Service Minister Dr Nigel Clarke announced in Parliament on Tuesday. But while acknowledging the...
A MAJOR discrepancy was unearthed by the Auditor General’s Department (AuGD) in one component of the Government’s COVID-19 Allocation of Resources for Employees (CARE) programme with more than 700 people appearing on the May list for payment,...
BEMOANING THE exorbitant sum spent by the Caribbean Maritime University (CMU) to acquire laptops and other equipment, Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Chairman Mark Golding questioned whether two Samsung tablets purchased at a price of $436,024 “...
The Public Administration and Appropriations Committee (PAAC) has called on the Integrity Commission or any other appropriate state body to investigate the $46-million contract awarded to Rahim Cleaning and Trucking Limited to carry out cleaning...
PROJECT MANAGER at the Caribbean Maritime University (CMU), Elaine Hayden, told a parliamentary oversight committee on Tuesday that her reputation would “take a beating” after admitting that she had no evidence to substantiate that there was a...
Legislation to amend the fiscal responsibility law was passed by the House of Representatives on Wednesday without amendment but not before a lengthy and contentious debate over the route taken by the Government and the short notice given to the...
FOLLOWING ADMISSION from the Caribbean Maritime University (CMU) that glaring procurement and other breaches were committed at the institution, members of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) want to know what action, if any, will be taken by state...
St Andrew South Member of Parliament Mark Golding has proposed that the Government introduce a threshold to exempt micro businesses and small non-governmental organisations such as churches from the Data Protection Act. With the passage of the...
DEBATE ON a motion to rename the Ferris Cross to Mackfield road in Westmoreland after Jamaica’s first native governor general, the late Sir Clifford Campbell, was not without controversy yesterday, after some opposition lawmakers suggested that...
NEARLY THREE years after the then Office of the Contractor General (OCG) launched a probe into alleged irregularities into the issuing of permits by the Firearm Licensing Authority (FLA), an opposition lawmaker is raising questions about the status...
OPPOSITION SPOKESMAN on Finance Mark Golding says the committee announced by Prime Minister Andrew Holness on Monday to chart the Jamaican economy’s rescue from the COVID-19 fallout was not sufficiently broad-based because it excluded the...
Painting a worrying picture of many Jamaicans struggling to stave off the pangs of hunger from the COVID-19 economic fallout, opposition lawmaker Phillip Paulwell is urging the Government to double the $10.6-billion aid package. Paulwell argued...
A risk analysis study commissioned by the Cabinet and spearheaded by Dr Parris Lyew-Ayee Jr, director of the Mona Geoinformatics Institute at The University of the West Indies, has found that more than 40 communities in the Kingston Metropolitan...
There were tense moments on Thursday during a meeting of a Special Select Committee of Parliament discussing the impact of COVID-19 on the country after Horace Dalley pressed the Government to carry out more tests on symptomatic persons. Dalley...
The Ministry of Health and Wellness is looking for volunteers to carry out testing for COVID-19 as a senior health official told a parliamentary committee yesterday that healthcare workers have expressed fear in conducting the procedure. “If we...
Jamaican workers who have lost their jobs because of the economic ravages of COVID-19 are eligible to receive $54,000 under the Government’s Supporting Employees with Transfer of Cash (SET Cash) programme subject to stipulated conditions. This is...
With the COVID-19 pandemic turning its screws on the Jamaican economy, Prime Minister Andrew Holness yesterday announced a stimulus package to reduce interest rates by one percentage point to new National Housing Trust (NHT) borrowers while...
The Holness administration is taking steps to shore up businesses hit hard by the onset of COVID-19 as well as to provide temporary cash support to people who lose their jobs because of the economic fallout from the global pandemic. At the same...
The tourism sector, Jamaica’s second-largest earner of foreign exchange, is expected to haemorrhage approximately J$76 billion as government officials cut the forecast for the 2020-2021 fiscal year owing to the severe impact of the dreaded...
Tardiness became a way of life for the Government that directs the legislative agenda in the House of Representatives for the parliamentary year ended 2019-2020. Parliament’s clocks appeared to be running on ‘Jamaica time’ – the facetious reference...
“There are psychopaths among us!” This was the conclusion of Government senator and consultant psychiatrist Dr Saphire Longmore after recounting some barbaric acts of violence against children and women in the Jamaican society. “When someone can...
A government senator is calling attention to men who receive unwelcome advances from their female bosses at the workplace and suffer in silence. Meanwhile, Justice Minister Delroy Chuck yesterday urged Gender Minister Olivia Grange to roll out a...
Declaring that the leadership of the Old Harbour police subdivision was only effective at shutting down “birthday parties and set-ups”, controversial St Catherine South West Member of Parliament (MP) Everald Warmington yesterday criticised the...
