People’s National Party (PNP) President Mark Golding is calling on Jamaicans to keenly analyse Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness’ battle with the Integrity Commission about his statutory declarations before they go to the polls on September 3.

Following Dr Holness’ announcement on Sunday in Half-Way Tree of the date for the general election and nomination day on August 18, Golding told reporters: “We are going to the elections with a Prime Minister whose statutory declarations for the Integrity Commission are not certified. Who’s under investigation for the crime of illicit enrichment.

“That is unprecedented, unheard of in any democracy around the world, and Jamaican people must judge that when they come to make their decision as to who they think can take this country forward.”

During the rally on Sunday, Dr Holness defended himself. “Whatever little I’ve made in life, I made it just like you. I buy two taxi, then I open a taxi company, and I go through the struggles just like everybody else. I want to thank those who thought that by releasing documents, they would somehow diminish me. I am a true Jamaican! I went through the Jamaican struggles! And I never made any money on the backs of the Jamaican people!”

His remarks elicited shouts of approval and ringing of bells throughout the sea of party supporters at the rally.

“I never made any money off of government!… Mek mi tell dem and dem friend, no weapon that they are conspiring to form against me shall prosper!… I will never do anything to harm you. We have gone through the same struggles,” he boisterously added.

Holness said when it was proposed for an increase in his salary, he declined, while the “tapanariss took it”. He asked supporters at the rally: “Who is truly for Jamaica?”

“In the 1990s, the PNP ran the economy in such a way that they increased interest rates. [I[ want everybody to listen to this! They increased the interest rates high and then they borrowed. Who were the people who lent them money? They are in parliament today. They benefited. They built a business on the high-interest-rate policy of the PNP. They made their money! Those tapanariss made their money on the backs of people like you! Because it is the taxes that you paid that paid the high interest rate to those people!” Holness shouted.

“Poor people don’t have money to lend to the government! It is those people who had the investment houses that benefited and then now they want to come and pretend as if they never benefited from government. They benefited from the bad economic policies which affected you!” he added.

Holness also explained that it was so bad, that a member of their own PNP party and then Cabinet, and “a man of the cloth, a man who was a church man”, commented and stated that the policy with the high interest rate was “the greatest transfer of wealth from you—the poor people to them—the man who claim that him is a tapanariss”.

“He was the one who benefited! No poor person in Jamaica should ever allow that man to touch the economy, because he and his friend will go back to the high interest rate policies so that they can benefit from it and continue where they left off of transferring wealth from you to their coffers!” Holness shouted.

Juliet Cuthbert Flynn, the member of parliament for St. Andrew West Rural defended Dr Holness’ character, stating that he is “a respectful man” with “deep love for the people of Jamaica”.

“Our Prime Minister comes to us with a clean hand, clean heart and a clear mind,” she said at the JLP Mass Rally in Half Way Tree.