Member of Parliament (MP) for East Central St Andrew, Dr Peter Phillips, has described the delay by the Prime Minister to call by-elections for vacant seats as a ‘disrespect of the Jamaican people’.

He made the comments while addressing the 86th staging of the People’s National Party (PNP) conference on Sunday, September 15.

“I notice some by-elections going on, but that is a sideshow and in fact it is not only a sideshow, its a downright disrespect of the Jamaican people, because it is a disrespect for the rights of representation of the people of South Trelawny who have been without a MP, it is a disrespect for the people in Morant Bay who have been without the services of a councillor and I believe time come now for legislative reform that would cause a by-election to be held within a specified time whenever there is a vacany and give that power to the Electoral Commission of Jamaica so people can stop playing and monkeying around with the constitutional rights of the Jamaican people,” Phillips said noting that he supports the PNP’s decision not to contest the recent St Ann North East by-election.

He said this will be an easy task to be executed by the PNP in its next term in government.

There has been much debate surrounding the swift move by Prime Minister Andrew to announce a by-election for the St Ann North Eastern constituency on Wednesday, September 4, a day after the Member of Parliament for the seat, Marsha Smith, tendered her resignation.

The Trelawny Southern seat is yet to be filled a year after the resignation of Marisa Dalrymple-Philibert along with now vacant Morant Bay (St Thomas) and Aenon Town (Clarendon) municipal seats following the death of councillors Rohan Bryan and Marjorie McLeod McFarlane.

The St Andrew North Western will also be vacant in October when Finance Minister Dr Nigel Clarke resignation takes effect for him to take up his appointment as deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund.

“Time comes now for the people of Jamaica to change the path which they are going; time come now for a PNP administration to give hope to the people of Jamaica,” Phillips added. “I have a simple message, and I don’t have long to give it. I want you to remember not just that we are organising to take power, but I want you to bear in mind the mission of the PNP and why we want power. We don’t want power just to say we have power and we a gogan out there; we want power because our party has always been committed to building a new Jamaica.”

Additionally, Phillips said it is the mission of the PNP to eradicate the inequalities found in education and promote greater economic opportunity for Jamaicans.

“I believe we need to give Jamaican people a chance to own their own little piece of the rock. I believe in reparations; I believe in the reparations from overseas, but we here, our reparations to all those 700 thousand people that we calling squatters in the land of the birth. Time has come now for the greatest land titling programme in the history of the country so that those who have been dominated and propertyless can get there fair share of the inheritance that has been won by their forefathers,” he added, noting that this approach should also be extended to farmers.

He also highlighted the need for a more modernised agriculture sector to boost output farmers, which he said is the only way to eradicate poverty.