NEW YEARS MESSAGE 2017

2017 NEW YEAR’S MESSAGE FROM PRIME MINISTER, MOST HON. ANDREW HOLNESSWe hap­pi­ly wel­come 2017. As we embrace the New Year for all the poten­tial and promise it holds, we give God thanks for spar­ing our lives to see yet anoth­er year. We thank God for spar­ing us from what appeared to be immi­nent nat­ur­al dis­as­ters. We spare a thought for our loved ones, heroes and bene­fac­tors who left us last year. And we col­lec­tive­ly give God thanks for all our achieve­ments and suc­cess­es last year and par­tic­u­lar­ly, note with great pride the incred­i­ble accom­plish­ments of our ath­letes and high­light the super­hu­man feats of Usain Bolt. We reflect as well on our expe­ri­ences last year and the lessons we take for­ward to man­age the chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties this New Year will bring. Personally, my own expe­ri­ences have reaf­firmed that with goals, a smart plan, faith in God and the will­ing­ness and com­mit­ment to hard work, you can achieve your dreams, even when there is doubt and the odds are stacked against you. The New Year is a time of set­ting new dreams and mak­ing res­o­lu­tions to achieve them. I encour­age all Jamaicans not to be afraid to dream big and set ambi­tious goals. In par­tic­u­lar, I urge par­ents not to lim­it the imag­i­na­tion of our chil­dren, by rein­forc­ing neg­a­tive stereo­types on their minds or con­strain them with­in the bound­aries of what you believe your resources can afford. Our Children are nev­er worth­less. Their dreams today will become the val­ue in our real­i­ty tomor­row. Let them have dreams, ambi­tions and aspi­ra­tions. Dreams and res­o­lu­tion are mean­ing­less until we open our eyes and con­vert them to a vision through strate­gic plan­ning, and into the real­i­ty we want by dis­ci­plined effort, dili­gent work and faith in God. In as much as we set new res­o­lu­tions this year, take the time to plan the path­way to your dreams, write down your goals, it helps you to vision them, stick to your plan, put in the work, be res­olute in your res­o­lu­tions. I know one of your res­o­lu­tions this year may be to achieve some mea­sure of eco­nom­ic inde­pen­dence, whether it is through:Advancing your edu­ca­tion and skills to gain employ­ment and earn your own income, To pay a mort­gage towards own­ing your own home instead of pay­ing rentOr start invest­ing in your own busi­ness enterpriseOur gov­ern­ment shares these res­o­lu­tion. That is why we have rein­stat­ed the Tuition Free Access to Education Policy. Every Jamaican child must have access to edu­ca­tion to open their minds to pos­si­bil­i­ties and big think­ing; empow­ered with the tools to con­vert dreams to real­i­ty. That is why we have main­tained a laser-like focus on Economic Growth, through which we will cre­ate jobs. Already we see our efforts start­ing to bud. The lat­est growth fig­ures for the 3^rd quar­ter of last year show 2% growth in GDP, the high­est growth since 2007. Employment also grew in the last quar­ter; both total employ­ment and, of par­tic­u­lar note, youth employ­ment. Growth in tourism has been record break­ing. From January to October last year, the island record­ed 5.2% growth, with total vis­i­tor arrivals reach­ing over 3.1 mil­lion. Cruise ship arrivals increased by 9.1% and, for this win­ter sea­son, Jamaica has secured in excess of 4,000 new seats from the United States, com­pared to last win­ter. Gross for­eign exchange earn­ings from tourism between January and October last year were in excess of US$2 bil­lion, a 5.7% increase over the cor­re­spond­ing peri­od. Investments in the sec­tor have been phe­nom­e­nal, with over 1,000 new rooms expect­ed to be added to our room stock dur­ing win­ter tourist sea­son of 2017, apart from those which will become avail­able through ren­o­va­tion and upgrad­ing. The Business Process Outsourcing sec­tor is grow­ing rapid­ly and will see major expan­sions in jobs, ben­e­fit­ing more Jamaicans in 2017 with Development Bank of Jamaica, the Factories Corporation of Jamaica and the Port Authority of Jamaica con­tin­ue to make and sup­port major invest­ments in the sec­tor. We have also increased NHT sup­port for per­sons seek­ing to acquire hous­ing solu­tions and based on the many thank-yous I have been get­ting many Jamaicans have been putting the 1.5 income tax relief to good use. Generally there is a sense of opti­mism, the rat­ing agen­cies have revised upward their out­look on Jamaica, and busi­ness con­fi­dence is at an all-time high. As your gov­ern­ment we have man­aged to achieve a seam­less and unin­ter­rupt­ed tran­si­tion to a new IMF pro­gramme and main­tain fis­cal dis­ci­pline while stim­u­lat­ing some mea­sure of eco­nom­ic growth at the same time. Our dream is to see every Jamaican eco­nom­i­cal­ly inde­pen­dent, thriv­ing and ful­filled and not just sur­viv­ing. To bring this dream to real­i­ty we have devel­oped and placed into action a nation­al plan to trans­form Jamaica. In 2017 the gov­ern­ment will con­tin­ue its focus on the trans­for­ma­tion of the econ­o­my. We can­not do it alone, we need all hands on deck. This is why we have empha­sized part­ner­ships with civ­il soci­ety and var­i­ous inter­est groups. The Economic Growth Council and the Economic Programme Oversight Committee will con­tin­ue to play crit­i­cal roles in ensur­ing the nation is informed, buys in, and stays com­mit­ted to the eco­nom­ic trans­for­ma­tion programme.This year great focus will be placed on the trans­for­ma­tion of the pub­lic sec­tor. There are some fun­da­men­tal truths which the coun­try must come to grips with if we are to achieve our eco­nom­ic inde­pen­dence. We need a large and active pri­vate sec­tor to invest and cre­ate enter­prise. The pri­vate sec­tor is not just a group­ing of very rich peo­ple who own all the wealth to the exclu­sion of every­one else. The pri­vate sec­tor includes the small and microen­ter­prise own­ers as well. 1,000 small farm­ers across Jamaica employ­ing 1 addi­tion per­son, and 200 small con­trac­tors hir­ing 5 more work­ers because 100 new small bed and break­fast hotels are cater­ing to tourist all over the island, has the same or greater invest­ment and employ­ment effect as open­ing one large hotel or one fac­to­ry. We must see and treat our small entre­pre­neurs and busi­ness peo­ple equal­ly as the “Private Sector”. The Public Sector exist to sup­port the growth and devel­op­ment of the Private Sector regard­less of the size and sta­tus of the busi­ness or enter­prise. The slow pace of approvals and per­mits, and over bureau­crat­ic process­es and reg­u­la­tion is a con­straint and con­cern to all who do busi­ness, whether big busi­ness or small busi­ness. Everyone who works in the Public Sector should real­ize that we only have jobs because we serve pri­vate cit­i­zens and busi­ness­es. Everyone who works in the Public Sector, should real­ize that our con­di­tion and terms of ser­vice can only improve when the pri­vate sec­tor is grow­ing. 2017 will be the year when the trans­for­ma­tion of our Public Sector begins​.In this mod­el of a sup­port­ive pub­lic sec­tor and an ener­gized pri­vate sec­tor, every Jamaica can play their part in going for eco­nom­ic growth and job cre­ation whether you are a clerk or the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary, or a wait­er or a hotel man­ag­er if we all make it our duty to do our duty more effi­cient­ly and effec­tive­ly, this will be the ulti­mate part­ner­ship for our pros​per​i​ty​.As we look back at last year we heard, saw and felt the pain of our peo­ple, deal­ing with the impacts crime.We know that sec­tions of Jamaica con­tin­ue to be plagued by seri­ous crimes, par­tic­u­lar­ly mur­ders. The brazen and grue­some nature of the crim­i­nal acts sent shock­waves of fear far beyond the local­i­ty of the crime. The dis­turb­ing trend of increas­ing inci­dents of vio­lence against women and chil­dren is of grave con­cern to the gov­ern­ment. At this point, when all eco­nom­ic indi­ca­tors are point­ing in the right direc­tion, crime is the great­est threat to Jamaica achiev­ing eco­nom­ic growth. Crime is the great­est threat to our eco­nom­ic inde­pen­dence. I believe the Jamaican peo­ple are now pre­pared and expects firm and deci­sive action in break­ing the neck of the crime mon­ster once and for all. I have been around the coun­try and every­where I go the cry is the same, deal with the criminals.I no longer detect an ambiva­lence, while there is still some sym­pa­thy for the com­plex social jus­tice issues that explain crimes, the Jamaican peo­ple do not view pover­ty and lack of oppor­tu­ni­ty as an excuse for crime. There are thou­sands of Jamaican young men and women who are poor and with­out oppor­tu­ni­ty, but who con­tin­ue the good struggle.The young man from St. Ann who I met recent­ly dur­ing a trip to Ocho Rios, is learn­ing to carve. And he and oth­ers in his com­mu­ni­ty are sell­ing craft items to near­by attrac­tions; earn­ing his fam­i­ly and the coun­try well need­ed for­eign exchange.Or the group of young men in my con­stituen­cy, who pool togeth­er to pro­mote round robin par­ties. They made a deci­sion NOT to pur­sue a life of crime regard­less of how dif­fi­cult their cir­cum­stances. But every time a shot is fired, some­one gets robbed or a mur­der is com­mit­ted, the dance is locked off and per­mits are refused, or the tour to attrac­tion gets can­celled. The eco­nom­ic inde­pen­dence that young man from St Ann and the young dance pro­mot­ers from Olympic Gardens is denied. Criminals chose crime. Criminals are not Robin Hood, they rob us of our liveli­hood. We have a plan to secure Jamaica and in the com­ing weeks, aspects of the plan that can be made pub­lic will be dis­closed. We will be cre­at­ing the leg­isla­tive envi­ron­ment to sup­port the estab­lish­ment of the rule of law in com­mu­ni­ties where it is absent and to sep­a­rate crim­i­nals from com­mu­ni­ties they have cap­tured. Under this frame­work, zones where the secu­ri­ty forces and oth­er gov­ern­ment agen­cies will be able to con­duct spe­cial long term oper­a­tions in high crime areas, includ­ing exten­sive search­es for guns, con­tra­band and crim­i­nals will be cre­at­ed. We have already made sig­nif­i­cant invest­ments in increas­ing our abil­i­ty to con­trol our mar­itime bor­ders to inter­cept ille­gal ship­ments of guns and con­tra­band. There will be restruc­tur­ing of the secu­ri­ty forces to increase oper­a­tion and admin­is­tra­tive focus on the Western parish­es, which will see the west­ern oper­a­tional area for the police split in two and the JDF pres­ence increased to a batal­ion sta­tioned in Montego Bay along with oth­er infra­struc­ture improve­ments to accom­mo­date these changes. We have already start­ed to seek inter­na­tion­al sup­port in tech­ni­cal and strate­gic areas from friend­ly coun­tries, how­ev­er, every Jamaican must rec­og­nize that no for­eign coun­try can solve our crime prob­lem or spon­sor a solu­tion. We must solve our crime prob­lem as a nation. We are con­fi­dent that this year will be the break-through year in bring the crime mon­ster under con­trol while respect­ing the human rights of every cit­i­zen. As a gov­ern­ment we are pre­pared to use the full force of the law to address the crime prob­lem, as it is the great­est threat to Jamaica’s prospects, progress and pros­per­i­ty at this time. I call on all Jamaicans to join the nation­al effort against crime. Information is the best weapon against the crim­i­nal. Share it wise­ly. We are very opti­mistic about the com­ing year. I know things have already start­ed to improve. I know as well that after many years of false starts and bro­ken promise, dis­be­lief and pes­simism is still wide­spread. One of my com­mit­ments is to keep the gov­ern­ment com­mit­ted to the cur­rent path. Another of my com­mit­ment to you is to ensure that poor­est and dis­posed ben­e­fit in an accel­er­at­ed way from the progress and pros­per­i­ty that will come. My goal is to ensure that you ful­fill your dreams. I wish for all Jamaica health, hap­py, prospect-filled, pro­gres­sive and pros­per­ous New Year.

Posted by Andrew Holness on Saturday, December 31, 2016