Portmore residents need to be a part of the parish conversation

There has been no real inclusion of Portmore citizens in the talks of Portmore becoming a parish. The explanation given for this is that the parliamentary committee that supposedly explored the question was constrained by the COVID-19 pandemic.

A Portmore hoax?

15 Feb 2022

IF THE residents of Portmore, St Catherine, do not pay attention, they will soon be victims of a great travesty. Or, some might claim, a political con, the reason for which remains to be fully understood.

Based on a resolution passed by Parliament this month – without the citizens having had a real say in the matter – they will be required to forfeit their right to live in a city that already has the legal basis for substantial autonomy and proper management, in exchange for being designated a parish of a likely evanescent quality. Or, put another way, Portmore as a parish will hardly be capable of doing more than what more competent city managers could achieve under the current arrangements.

With nearly 200,000 people, Portmore would rank only behind the administrative duopoly of Kingston and St Andrew and, if it is decoupled, St Catherine, as the island’s largest parish, ranked by population. To be fair to the governing Jamaica Labour Party, transitioning Portmore to parish status was in its manifesto for the September 2020 general election, even if no one noticed. The Government should perhaps be commended for acting with alacrity on a promised policy matter.

While this newspaper welcomed that there was a debate of sorts on the Portmore matter, we were surprised by its essential puffery – its focus on promises of high-rise buildings, investments in business outsourcing operations, and so on, that would follow parish status.

MISSED THE MARK

The debate missed the mark on two important fronts. There was not an aggressive engagement of the citizens of Portmore, including soliciting their views via public opinion surveys.The explanation given for this is that the parliamentary committee that supposedly explored the question was constrained by the COVID-19 pandemic. Equally egregious was its failure to seriously interrogate the reasons why Portmore, as a city municipality, has not performed near to its real potential.

Our conclusion with respect to Portmore’s shortcomings is that, insofar as the experiment has failed, it is a failure of leadership rather than concept. The better response, therefore, would be to identify and fix the leadership problems or the gaps therein, rather than embark on a new experiment.

Initially established under the repealed Municipalities Act, Portmore, like the municipal corporations (the old parish councils), is governed by the Local Governance Act of 2016, under which there is relatively little differentiation between the powers of the two types of entities. Essentially, under that law, Portmore is a near-autonomous city, or, in accordance with sections 5 (3) (a) and (b) of the act, a city municipality “to be known as the city municipality of Portmore”.

Like the parish municipalities, Portmore, as is designated by Section 8 (11) of the law, is a body corporate “having perpetual succession which Section 28 of the Interpretation Act shall apply”. The municipality, therefore, has its own legal personality, with the power to enter contracts, hold property, and employ staff, and to be judicially engaged in its own right.

Further, as a defined ‘local authority’, the Portmore council, under Section 18 of the act, is responsible, as is the case more broadly with parish municipalities, for:

• Designated local services;

• Providing oversight of specified local, economic and social activities;

• Ensuring good civic order;

• Identifying and mobilising sources of revenue; and

• Spearheading “the preparation, adoption and implementation of local sustainable development plans for the entire area within its jurisdiction, or such selected districts or communities therein, as it considers desirable”.

ADVISORY COMMITTEE

In pursuing these activities, the law requires that a city municipality establish an advisory committee “comprised of such civil society, private-sector and community-based organisations within the municipality as the council shall determine”.

As is to happen with parish municipalities, the law mandates that city municipalities establish separate finance and public accounts to provide oversight of their financial operations and contractual arrangements. These two committees must have external members, to help bring greater fiscal prudence and oversight of the municipalities’ business. These, however, are not the only committees on which the Portmore council (or others, if established) is allowed to invite non-council members to sit. Like parish municipalities, it could do so with any committee established to help in its operation.

The bottom line is that the Portmore council is not without significant authority, Indeed, motivated leadership would be expected to aggressively advocate for improved infrastructure and services for its municipality. A thoughtful one would leverage the participation of community-minded citizens, through its advisory committee, and those who sit on standing and special committees, as additional voices in this advocacy.

A city municipality does not have to be designated a parish for that to happen. For example, Leon Thomas, the mayor of Portmore, if he had the vision and was appropriately motivated, could well launch a campaign to encourage Jamaica’s biggest firms to move their headquarters to Portmore, having lobbied the central government to provide incentives to make the move attractive.

Critically, considering this matter, there is a right that comes with being a resident of a city municipality, which is worth noting but has not had serious attention. Residents of Portmore should be wary of forfeiting it.The chairmen of parish municipalities, who are designated mayors of their parishes’ capital towns, are elected by the other members of their councils.

Thomas was directly elected to the job – the choice of the majority of people who voted in the municipal elections. Direct democracy! Those very citizens can seek to impeach him if 25 per cent of Portmore’s registered voters sign a petition, causing the minister to open an investigation into MrThomas’conduct. If a case is proved, the national Parliament could then vote to remove him.

Our view is that it would make more sense to attempt to have the Portmore system really work, rather than add to the failure of the parish council.

 

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