The cau­cus of gov­ern­ment sen­a­tors is giv­ing their full sup­port to Prime Min­is­ter An­drew Hol­ness fol­low­ing the tabling of the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion’s re­port in Par­lia­ment ear­li­er this week.

In a state­ment on Thurs­day, the 13 gov­ern­ment sen­a­tors said they have not­ed that the re­port found no ba­sis for pros­e­cu­tion and high­light­ed the cred­i­bil­i­ty of an ex­pla­na­tion prof­fered by the prime min­is­ter.

“The Sen­ate cau­cus al­so notes that de­spite a pro­longed in­ves­ti­ga­tion, which in­volved the hir­ing of an in­ter­na­tion­al foren­sic ac­coun­tant, the com­mis­sion did not con­clude the prime min­is­ter act­ed un­law­ful­ly or un­eth­i­cal­ly. We are ful­ly con­fi­dent in Prime Min­is­ter Hol­ness’ in­tegri­ty and his con­tin­ued dis­tin­guished stew­ard­ship of Ja­maica”, the gov­ern­ment sen­a­tors said.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the gov­ern­ment sen­a­tors said they strong­ly re­ject what they de­scribed as “dan­ger­ous, par­ti­san, mis­lead­ing and des­per­ate co­or­di­nat­ed at­tacks on the Prime Min­is­ter from the Op­po­si­tion and their sur­ro­gates in sec­tions of civ­il so­ci­ety and on so­cial me­dia”.

The state­ment on be­half of the 13 gov­ern­ment sen­a­tors was is­sued un­der the sig­na­ture of the Gov­ern­ment Leader in the Up­per House of Par­lia­ment, Kam­i­na John­son Smith.

On Wednes­day the main op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Par­ty (PNP) called for Hol­ness to step down to in light of the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion’s re­port on its in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the in­come and as­sets de­c­la­ra­tions sub­mit­ted by Hol­ness for 2019-2022.

But in re­sponse, the JLP re­ject­ed the call and the par­ty main­tains that the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion re­port up­on which the PNP premised its call, found the Prime Min­is­ter cul­pa­ble of no wrong­do­ing.

It said the Di­rec­tor of Cor­rup­tion Pros­e­cu­tion was clear in sug­gest­ing that the Prime Min­is­ter’s ex­pla­na­tion is cred­i­ble and there­fore pros­e­cu­tion is un­war­rant­ed.

JLP spokesper­son Juli­et Cuth­bert Fly­nn said the po­si­tion tak­en by the PNP is base­less.

KINGSTON, Ja­maica, Sep. 19, CMC –

CMC/jm/kb/2024