No ‘duppy story’

Dear Editor,

I write in reference to opinion piece ‘Duppy Stories and other run wid it tales’ written by Garfield Higgins in

The Agenda in the

Sunday Observer, March 13, 2016.

Please note that the quoted reference to what was said in the Planning Institute of Jamaica’s (PIOJ) quarterly press briefing does not contain any explicit quotation of the PIOJ speaking about election spending.

In fact, the director general of the PIOJ, in response to a query from a reporter from

The Gleaner, said: “I do not know about that.” There was neither an endorsement nor denial of the perspective being advanced by the reporter’s question.

With the actual “duppy story” having been created by a misleading caption in

The Gleaner, not substantiated by the body of the report, we sought to correct this by a letter to the editor of

The Gleaner, published in the

Financial Gleaner two days before the publication of your opinion piece.

We recommend special attention to our plea for accurate representation in the press and for the PIOJ not to be made unjustly to appear to be engaged in partisan political conflict.

Colin Bullock

Director General

Planning Institute of Jamaica