Portmore needs greater fiscal autonomy

THE EDITOR, Madam:

A weak and struggling Jamaican economy and sliding dollar does not augur well for the fiscal health of Portmore even if it attains parish status.

Having a spatially small or relatively weak property tax base centred in Portmore will result in a dysfunctional higher rate of per capita taxation (and significantly lower levels of revenues for the residents of Portmore than would be the case for the residents of the wider St Catherine parish). In any event, a 14th municipal council unit only serves to extend the line of ‘hungry parish mouths’ waiting to be fed by central government’s spatially distracted and unfocused fiscal trough of limited resources.

What needs to be done first before Portmore clamours for parish status is to seek critical avenues for greater fiscal autonomy. This subnational government autonomy can be achieved in a cost-effective and sustainable way best via constitutionally and administratively empowered and specialised service delivery focused regional county councils.

The goal being to effectively assist the equitable, mutually sustainable development of the island’s many fast-growing communities through sophisticated and spatially coordinated regional county-based general plans in support of critical grassroots-driven tools to address climate change.

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