Minister of Tourism Edmund Bartlett. (Photo: JIS)
Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett said the government would allocate $500 million to housing tourism workers living in “substandard conditions”.
He said that under this new intervention to support extremely poor tourism workers, 100 homes will be provided to them this year.
“This strategy of reaching out to people in tourism who are very poor is one of the strategies that has bothered me for a while, because I go to meet them and some of them are like palaces. Because I know that there are people who are neglecting this environment.” [less than ideal settings] That can’t be right,” Mr Bartlett said on Tuesday during the opening of the 2024/25 departmental debate in the House of Commons.
He said the funding, provided by the Tourism Enhancement Fund (TEF) and matched by the Jamaica Hotel and Tourism Association (JHTA) and tourism partners, will benefit workers who “don’t have the capacity to build their own homes.” He said he was deaf. But they have families who own land somewhere. ”
Additionally, he said 3,000 units will be provided by hotel investors to hotel employees.
Meanwhile, Mr Bartlett said the Tourism Workers Pension Scheme (TWPS), which was launched in January 2022, had 9,497 registered tourism workers as of April 19, 2024, saving $1.2 billion. It was announced that there was.
“In addition to the $1 billion we have raised, [Government] Between investments and interest earned as a result of proper management, we currently have $3 billion in our fund,” he said.
Bartlett said this means more than just a pool of money for workers, it’s what we’ve built and are currently building, which is expected to have between 300,000 and 500,000 subscribers. This is because it is the only pension system that is not limited to a single pension system. Anyone who contributes more than 30 percent of his labor and effort to tourism is eligible for membership, regardless of skill set or company. ”
He said he believed the comprehensive pension system had the potential to create a pool of domestic savings that could be converted into investments.
“That’s the essence of growth, because you don’t have to go borrowing externally, and that money goes out of Jamaica and goes to repayment. You can build roads, you can build schools, you can build hospitals, and so on. There will be enough affordable money pooled to build a lot of things. So this vision is not just about the tourism workers themselves. It’s a vision for the tourism industry, for economic growth and development. “It makes a huge contribution,” he said.
