WATCH: Under PNP during COVID, Jamaica would have imploded - PM

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According to Prime Minister Andrew Holness, had the People’s National Party (PNP) been in charge during the COVID-19 pandemic, Jamaica would have “collapsed.”

In an effort to deflect criticism from those who accuse him of “weaponizing” rubbish collection, Holness said that the government had to give the health sector priority during the terrible pandemic.

At the National Solid Waste Management Authority’s Wednesday ceremony to receive 50 new garbage trucks, Holness addressed the crowd, “If this pandemic had hit any other Government, the threat of collapse of the Government would be genuine” (NSWMA).

“And I even go so far as to add another claim. If a PNP government had been in power during this pandemic, the nation undoubtedly would have fallen “He continued by saying.

Over the past several days, the leader of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) has defended his administration’s management of all facets of governance, including crime, energizing the political climate in the nation in advance of the Local Government Elections, which are scheduled for February 2023.

It was the same on Wednesday morning when Holness criticized people for “weaponizing” matters like garbage collection.

Residents and the opposition PNP have been outraged for weeks over the poor or nonexistent rubbish pickup in a number of municipalities across the nation.

Holness claimed that due to the allocation of funding to other sectors, including health, the government had to “cut” its plan to buy 100 garbage trucks.

He said, “The Government also lost $75 billion in revenues.”

Holness asserted that his administration made “the proper choices, got us through the epidemic safely, and we are not experiencing what is typically referred to as a U-shape recovery.”

He claimed that as a result, the government was able to buy and then transfer 50 garbage vehicles.

According to Holness, “We are currently experiencing a V-shape recovery, or what I like to call a tick recovery because the recovery is returning to better levels than when the fall-off occurred.

This, according to Holness, is the result of “excellent government—not just good administration.”