Rent row retreat

PRIME Minister Dr Andrew Holness has announced that the Government will initially limit the National Reconstruction and Resilience Authority (NaRRA) to one floor of the Digicel building, cutting the amount of office space originally planned for the agency following public outrage over the roughly $115-million annual rental cost of its headquarters.

But in an immediate response to the Jamaica Observer on Wednesday, Opposition spokesman on finance Julian Robinson rejected the Government’s decision, saying it did not go far enough. “My view is that it’s not good enough. I think the lease must be cancelled fully and the Government must find existing office space. The Government has hundreds of thousands of square feet of office space around the country. A lot of it is not being fully utilised and they must use space that exists instead of renting space. There’s no justification for that in this climate,” Robinson said.

He also dismissed the Government’s argument that NaRRA needs a disaster-resilient building to carry out its work, questioning whether that requirement falls within the authority’s mandate.