welcome back to Prime Time News and a special welcome once again to our viewers
on onespotmedia.com up first this evening stronger measures are coming to contain the spread
of covid 19 in Jamaica that's the word from Prime Minister Andrew Holness four days before
the current covenanting measures expire mr holness made his contribution to the budget debate today
where he also responded to criticisms from the opposition fashion brown is covering the
debate and now joins us live fashion thank you so much janella well it is the day jamaica saw
another record in its covid19 fight close to 400 people in hospital for the disease
now the minister of health in its daily covert 19 clinical management summary said 398 persons
are now hospitalized the current measures to limit the spread of covid19 end on march 22.
prime minister andrew holness says with increased hospitalization and the daily positivity rate in
the 30 percent range more measures are coming i will be announcing a new set of stronger measures
designed to protect our health care system and save lives in the short term which eventually
protects and preserve our economy and livelihoods in the long term
in fact mr holden says hospitalization now exceeds the beds available by as much as 15 in
some instances now the local government minister desmond mckenzie today tabled amendments to the
disaster risk management act the changes will pave the way for the implementation
of the new ticketing system for enforcement of covid19 prevention measures like mask wearing
the government is prepared to have the bill reviewed by a joint select committee
over the weekend and debate and pass the bill next week if the opposition
is willing this would make the new measures more effective
if we have this amendment in place now kovit 19 aside the opposition last week recommended that
the government add another 21.5 billion dollars to the budget by reducing the primary surplus balance
this the opposition argued would help jamaicans who are feeling the economic impact of the
covet-19 pandemic today the prime minister rejected that suggestion arguing that it would
push it would push jamaica back into a death trap this is precisely how a vicious debt spiral begins
leading to an increase in our debt again to unsustainable levels undermining the credibility
of government's fiscal policy putting our international credit credit ratings at risk and
ultimately threatening the prospects of recovery that every jamaican household is anticipating
another issue that came up during the budget debate relates to the bank of jamaica
the opposition leader on tuesday slammed the government for using money from the boj profits to
fund the budget mark golding argued that the boj achieved some of its profit through the currency
losing value which he accused the government of treating as an indirect tax between 1989 and
2007 the jamaican dollar went from 5 and 51 cents to 70 and 41 cents to a u.s dollar a 1 000 1178
devaluation representing an average devaluation rate of 15 yearly
this means that the bank of jamaica during their time would have had even greater foreign exchange
gains during their time the question then is where are the dividends where is the profit
now another announcement coming from that budget presentation
is some relief for unemployed nhd contributors how does that work
so yes janella that announcement was made by the prime minister as part of the kovit 19
relief effort the prime minister says the nht will allow persons who have been unemployed
for a period of 12 months or more to access their contribution refund one year in advance
that contributor if they have lost their job could access their refund for 2013
but they could also access their refund for 2014
the proposed implementation date for this initiative
is july 2021 the initiative will expire in july 2022
so janella just one more step left in this budget to debate uh process
the finance minister dr nigel clark will close the debate come tuesday