Unacceptable! Montego Bay losing millions in tax revenue
Published:Sunday | May 29, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Adrian Frater, News Editor
Western Bureau:
WITH SOME forty per cent of its population living outside the established formal sector, the city of Montego Bay's revenue generating capacity is being badly hampered as millions of dollars in potential tax revenue is being loss on account of unplanned developments.
Several stakeholders expressed concern about the situation at a Gleaner Editors' Forum in that city, which was held under the theme, 'Development, Deception and Disorder'. Participants at the forum said that they would like to see the regularisation of the city's 23 informal communities.
"Forty per cent of the Montego Bay community lives outside of the formal economic process, this is a prescription for disorder," said social activist and head of COMAND (The Community Organisation for Management and Sustainable Development), O. Dave Allen. "This is unacceptable."
Advocating for a break in the cycle of land-capturing and its attendant vices such as poverty and crime, Allen said there is an urgent need for both regularisation and the creation of economic opportunities for residents.
"There is now an urgent need for an articulate policy to address the informal communities in the parish," said Allen. "Based on the absence of a development policy, it would appear that these informal settlements have been abandoned."
Addressing the economic needs of inner-city residents. Allen issued a call for small business and industrial parks to be created in communities such as Glendevon, Norwood, Flankers, Granville, Green Pond and Barrett Hall.
While arguing that the future of Montego Bay looks bright with major developments such as Whitter Village, Fairview Development, Bogue Estate and Shoppes of Rose Hall coming on stream over the past 10 years, prominent land developer Mark Kerr-Jarrett also zoomed in on the informal settlements as an area of concern.
"We have to look at the curtailment of any further capturing and move towards the creation of affordable housing," Kerr-Jarrett said.
Normalise communities
As a possible solution to the problem, Kerr-Jarrett is proposing the normalisation of these communities by putting in proper infrastructure, as well as, providing titles for each lot.
"If we can find a source of financing, then all we would need to do is to mobilise the contractors," said Kerr-Jarrett. "We send them (the contractors) in with their equipment and we put in road, water, sewage, sidewalks, street lights, garbage collection and title the lots."
From a policing perspective, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Denver Frater, the commanding officer for Area One, which includes the city of Montego Bay, says he too would like to see the informal communities formalise as he believes it would make for more effective policing.
"The informal communities are the main contributors to crime and violence," said ACP Frater. "We believe that if these areas are looked at in a more serious way in terms of the road rehabilitation programme, the regularisation in terms of being able to identify different properties, then I believe we will be able to make more significant inroads into addressing some of the social issues that are now affecting the city."
ACP Frater said the police are being severely hampered by poor road conditions, no street lights and the lack of fixed addresses among other social conditions.