Campaign spokesperson Cleveland Tomlinson of the People’s National Party (PNP) highlighted the party’s plan to provide tax relief to citizens on Monday, describing it as a game-changer for working Jamaicans.

“I’m reminding the Jamaican people that a signature proposal from us in this election cycle, which will be done, is a removal of taxes on overtime pay,” Tomlinson said.

Tomlinson emphasised the significance of this proposal aimed at workers in high-overtime sectors such as security personnel.

“We appreciate that majority of the income that is earned as a security guard comes from the overtime that is done. And we are committing to you to remove taxes from overtime pay.”

The plan, he said, is not only about immediate relief, but also economically driven. “You will have more money in your pockets to spend in the economy. There will be greater levels of economic activity being stimulated. The government will be able to recover funding through its indirect taxes. We are not of the view that our proposals, our programmes, and what we will do will be done in a fiscally reckless way,” he added.

He also proposed that the PNP would give back $35,000 per month from the income tax adjustment. “We will give you back money through our removal of taxes on overtime pay. We also remove taxes from tips.”

Tomlinson framed these policies as the next chapter in Jamaica’s economic journey—one grounded in past PNP sacrifice and discipline. “Because we appreciate that the country has gone through a period of fiscal consolidation, of belt tightening. We have made the difficult choices, particularly in the last PNP government.

“The country has achieved a degree of macroeconomic stability, largely an outcome of the difficult fiscal and economic reforms that were pursued and implemented by the PNP, for which we paid the political price in 2016 to get the country where it is at today with respect to that stability, and we are committed to safeguarding it,” he continued.

Tomlinson reminded Jamaicans that the PNP laid the foundation of today’s macroeconomic stability.

“We enhanced the fiscal rules to safeguard that stability. The downward movement of the debt-to-GDP ratio is a creature, is an outcome of what we did to make it legally binding on any government to ensure that the ratio reaches 60 per cent by a particular legislated timeline.”