Funds found for JEEP, but source unclear

The government says it has identified at least $4 billion to fund the Jamaica Emergency Employment Programme (JEEP).

Finance Minister, Dr. Peter Phillips made the disclosure at a post-Cabinet press briefing this afternoon.

However, the Finance Minister was not clear about the source of the $4 billion.

Phillips said the implementation of the emergency employment programme could begin this fiscal year which ends on March 31.

He said Transport and Works Minister Dr Omar Davies will shortly give Parliament the details of the JEEP and its implementation schedule which will extend over more than one fiscal year.

The JEEP was a major plank of the People’s National Party’s campaign to win the December 29 general elections.

In January, Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller announced that the JEEP would have been rolled out before the end of the month.

However, it turned out that it was an Inter-American Development Bank-funded road maintenance programme that was launched instead.

The Prime Minister later clarified that the IDB project was not part of JEEP and that the government’s work programme would be rolled out at a later date.

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