LOCKDOWN PERIL
Holness laments economic hit of shutdown as cruise ships set to call again
Published:Thursday | August 12, 2021 | 12:12 AMChristopher Serju/Senior Gleaner Writer
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Cruise ships will be making calls to Jamaican ports very soon, but Prime Minister Andrew Holness, who made the disclosure last evening, failed to provide any details about the timeline even as he emphasised the importance of walking a tightrope...
Cruise ships will be making calls to Jamaican ports very soon, but Prime Minister Andrew Holness, who made the disclosure last evening, failed to provide any details about the timeline even as he emphasised the importance of walking a tightrope between COVID-19-control measures and opening up the economy.
The prime minister, who was delivering the keynote address at the commissioning ceremony and christening of the Jamaica lll, a state-of-the-art utility vessel acquired by the Port Authority of Jamaica (PAJ), said the Ministry of Health and Wellness and the PAJ have been working together on protocols that will allow for the safe resumption of cruise operations after the industry was shuttered in March 2020.
“You would understand the difficult balancing act that the Government has to undertake – lives and livelihoods. It is a struggle to come to the position that will satisfy both concerns. I believe we are close. I believe we are there, and we are expecting to have cruise shipping return to Jamaica very soon, with strict protocols that will enable persons who have had their livelihoods decimated by the pandemic to have some hope even, and at the same time, with the maintenance of the protocols, that no life is lost because of complacency or carelessness.”
Holness said that the Government has to be thinking very carefully about how it puts in place measures to manage the pandemic from a public-health standpoint while ensuring that it does not create fiscal risks for public-sector bodies by affecting their ability to function and their revenues.
He continued: “ ... We cannot continue, in managing the pandemic, by only shutting down. Shutting down has serious financial implications and increases the fiscal risk to agencies and statutory bodies like the Port Authority, who are not funded by the Government. They are funded by revenues generated from their operations, such as cruise, and without that revenue, their balance sheets – their daily operations – are in peril.”
Holness said that the Government was “taking along a long-term strategic view and thinking as to how this will be done, but there has to be a pivot in the management of the pandemic.
“While a lot has been achieved,” he noted, “there is much more that needs to be done.”
Admitting that less than 10 per cent of the population is fully vaccinated, the prime minister said that the country is, however, heading in the right direction and appealed to Jamaicans to take the vaccine.
“We have enough vaccines now, and enough vaccines scheduled to come. Please go out and take your vaccine … . I make the appeal to all public-sector agencies, your staff, management to take the vaccine.”