'PNP must lead renewal process'
Nagra Plunkett, Assignment Coordinator
WESTERN BUREAU:
Opposition Senator K.D. Knight has issued a call for the People's National Party (PNP) to lead the renewal process to restore faith in the country's political system.
"The people who the PNP are putting forward as candidates, the future leaders, they must be clean. They must be honest because if we take these out and we go in and fail the people, Jamaica will become a failed state," Knight told party supporters during a special meeting in Montego Bay, St James, on Saturday.
"... Therefore, there is a heavy burden on the People's National Party. The rescue mission that it must now provide must show the people that there can be a restoration of faith in the political directorate."
His address was preceded by a training workshop for cluster managers and canvassers at The Wexford Hotel.
The Queen's Counsel also used the recently concluded commission of enquiry into the Government's hiring of United States law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips in the matter of the Christopher 'Dudus' Coke extradition request to that country, as the basis of his call for change.
Manatt cannot die
Knight, who led the PNP's legal team, described the enquiry as successful in exposing the Bruce Golding-led administration.
"The $78 million (price tag for the enquiry) cannot go like that. It must be the cost for the transformation of how politicians behave in Jamaica," he said.
"Manatt cannot be allowed to die. The PNP now have a responsibility to take over from the legal people. The political directorate must run with its message which is saying that your house must be in order."
The senator, who coined himself as being a man on a mission, also joined key party functionaries, including PNP vice-president and member of parliament for South St James, Derrick Kellier, and Henry McCurdy, caretaker for North West St James, in urging party workers to go into the field and begin to reconnect with communities.
Added Knight: "Everyone of us must understand that the future of our country rests in our own hands. So we have an individual responsibility and we have a collective responsibility. Once we understand that individually, we have a role to play, which we must, then we can get the collective responsibility together."