Golding reaffirms PNP’s commitment to western Jamaica ahead of annual conference

WESTMORELAND, Jamaica — People’s National Party (PNP) President Mark Golding on Sunday reiterated the party’s rationale for hosting the public session of its annual conference this year in western Jamaica instead of the usual National Arena in Kingston, stating that the PNP is standing in solidarity with the people of the region who were severely impacted by the passage of Hurricane Melissa last October.

The PNP’s 88th annual conference, which was expected to begin at 3:00 pm and is being impacted by rain, is being hosted in Independence Park in the town of Savanna-la-Mar, Westmoreland. The eye of the Category 5 storm made landfall in the parish a little over 11 months ago.

“It’s easy for us in the east of the island, in the Corporate Area and elsewhere, really to think that life is totally normal and things are back to the way we are accustomed to them being. But we know that that is not the case for everybody, and that many people are still trying to put their lives back together, trying to put their businesses back together,” Golding said.