Paul A. Reid, Staff Reporter
People's National Party presidential hopeful, Finance Minister Dr. Omar Davies, gestures while holding a child during his meeting with delegates and supporters of the party's Region 6 at the Holiday Inn SunSpree Resort in Montego Bay, St. James, on Saturday. - PHOTO BY PAUL REID
WESTERN BUREAU:
MINISTER OF Finance and Planning, Dr. Omar Davies, says he would eradicate illiteracy in five years, if elected president of the People's National Party and Prime Minister.
"That is one of the plans of my campaign. Every single person, no matter where you are, must see yourself as stepping up one more notch on the ladder, and if you sit still, you are falling behind," Dr. Davies told party supporters at the Holiday Sunspree Resort in Montego Bay on the weekend.
Dr. Davies, who is one of several candidates hoping to take over the leadership of the People's National Party (PNP) upon the resignation of Prime Minister P.J. Patterson, was in Montego Bay on Saturday trying to woo delegates. He also spoke at the opening of the St. James Netball Association's Intermediate League, toured the new facility of football club Seba United and met workers at the temporarily closed five-star Ritz-Carlton resort.
TAKE EDUCATION SERIOUSLY
Dr. Davies, who is chairman of Region Three, a PNP grouping of Corporate Area constituencies, said the only way to move ahead in Jamaica and the world was through education. Describing this as his passion, Dr. Davies said anyone who has ambitions to be a leader must take education seriously because "the future has very little space for people with no skills and no education".
He said he had no plans of being the leader of a Third World country, "The rest of the world is not sitting still and if you are, you will be left further and further behind ... we are going to step into the First World and we are going to step there with education and training."
Added Dr. Davies: "I would prefer to be voted out of office by a set of literate, educated people than for me to be voted into office by illiterates. I want you to make a sensible choice based on reasoning."
The 57-year-old Finance Minister listed his four main areas of concern as the economy, education, crime and violence, and the environment. He asked the delegates to judge him and other candidates on what they have accomplished and not what they said they would be doing.
