Jamaica fast becoming a country of ‘overnight’ food – Hayles

Member of Parliament for Westmoreland Western, Ian Hayles says Jamaica is fast becoming a country of overnight (leftover) food under the Jamaica Labour Party Government.

Hayles made the comment on Sunday as he addressed the public session of the 88th annual conference of the People’s National Party (PNP) in Savanna-la-Mar, Westmoreland.

Referencing a recent United Nations report which found that 55 per cent of Jamaicans were food insecure, with up to 28 per cent going for days at a time without eating, Hayles said Jamaicans earning minimum wage were struggling to survive.

“If you’re in the country, and many of us in rural Jamaica, is either you get up and you have tea bag or you have bush tea,” Hayles said.

“Today is Sunday, if you cook yuh Sunday dinner today, yuh a carry it go a work fi yuh breakfast and yuh lunch tomorrow. We are fast becoming a country of overnight food under the Jamaica Labour Party. We’re fast becoming that,” Hayles added.

According to the Opposition spokesman on water, “It’s not between the haves and the have not anymore. It’s between the have not and the have nothing”. He said “Jamaica was sliding as we speak, the poor are becoming poorer in this country”.

Hayles referred to major infrastructure works to be undertaken by the National Reconstruction and Resilience Authority (NaRRA) as a pie in the sky.

“They talk about a NaRRA pie and they talk about a recovery pie. Even if you tek a ladder and yuh stan up pon di ladder and yuh then jump, yuh still caw reach it,” he said.

He told the conference that Westmoreland, which suffered catastrophic devastation from Hurricane Melissa, is being referred to as tarpaulin country as many houses are still fitted with the blue covering where roofs once stood, nearly one year after the hurricane.

“That’s what we have been reduced to in Westmoreland. We have the worst set a roads, no water for the people in Westmoreland, most of the roofs in Westmoreland still have tarpaulin,” he lamented.