Dionne Rose, Staff Reporter
People's National Party (PNP) presidential candidate Dr. Peter Phillips greets a party supporter at the party's East Central St. Andrew Annual Conference held at Tarrant High School in St. Andrew yesterday. - NORMAN GRINDLEY/DEPUTY CHIEF PHOTOGRAPHER
LEADERSHIP CONTENDER for president of the People's National Party (PNP), Dr. Peter Phillips, yesterday launched his campaign for the top post in the party by promising to provide equal opportunities to all Jamaicans.
Addressing hundreds of supporters who turned out at the Tarrant High School on Molynes Road to endorse him as the next leader of the party, Dr. Phillips said, "Our economy still leaves too many people on the margins, on the edge of destitution and one's mission must be to ensure that all the Jamaican people can have a stake in the fruits of our economic life."
"We don't want economic growth just for profits of big companies can get bigger and bigger. We are not against profits but we want everyone to have the opportunity to collect their own pay cheques, take care of the needs of their own family and walk with their heads held high in dignity," he said.
SPREADING THE OPPORTUNITIES
Dr. Phillips said that this could only be achieved by what he called "spreading the opportunities among all Jamaicans and supporting small and medium size businesses."
"We need every youth that have a cart to build him up, so he can have a shop, every youth who a make furniture on the side of the road we want to put him in a good woodwork shop," he said.
Dr. Phillips also noted that on his agenda if elected president of the PNP, he would continue the revolution of the education system. He said that Jamaica cannot continue to produce students who are ill-equipped for the working world , with no qualifications.
"This is the modern world and we have to demand more of our education system, we will have to find new ways of doing things, new ways of rewarding teachers for performance... we will have to demand more from the system," he said.
FAMILY LIFE IMPORTANT
Dr. Phillips also promised to put family life firmly on the agenda, if elected as president of the party. He said that there were too many teenage pregnancies and two many fatherless children.
This situation, he said was "a recipe for the perpetuation of poverty". "Too many of our youths have no father figure, and too many parents are abandoning the children, everyone of the youths that you see out at the traffic light a midnight have a mother and a father that brought them into this world and at some stage we have to hold them responsible," he said.
With portfolio responsibility for National Security, Dr. Peter Phillips, however, failed to outline his strategies for the reduction of crime.
Several top leaders in the party turned out to endorse Dr. Phillips. These include Minister of Health, John Junor; Minister of Labour and Social Security, Horace Dalley; Minister of Education, Youth and Culture, Maxine Henry Wilson; State Minister in the Ministry of Water and Housing, Harry Douglas; Minister of Development, Dr. Paul Robertson; State Minister in the Ministry of Tourism, Dr. Wykeham McNeill, among others.
