Tired of the talk shop

Westmoreland Parish Council accused of being complacent

Claudia Gardner, Assignment Coordinator

WESTERN BUREAU:The Negril Resort Board has taken the Westmoreland Parish Council to task for being delinquent in the implementation of at least two projects in the tourist town for which the board has secured funding.

According to the chairman of the Negril Resort Board, Cliff Reynolds, two projects which have been approved for funding by the Tourism Enhancement Fund (TEF) remain undone or incomplete months after the parish council was contracted to undertake the work.

Reynolds made his comments during a board meeting last Thursday after Daniel Grizzle, the operator of Charela Inn, expressed disappointment with what he said was the councils delay in producing a quantity surveyors report and accompanying architectural drawings for the construction of a fruit and vegetable market in Negril.

The resort board has been lobbying for a market of this nature for about a decade.

The parish council took it (the contract) believing that they would be more cost-effective, but they are turning out to be the opposite. They are costing us more, Grizzle said.

They have had the drawing for over four months now. Over those four months, building costs have gone up over 12 per cent, and so I am suggesting that if they fail to present it in a fortnight, we take it back get private persons to undertake the works.

LONG WAIT

In voicing his agreement with Grizzle, Reynolds said he was also unhappy with the protracted wait.

The parish councils arrangement was that they build the market, but at this time, it looks like they are dragging their feet. They did the survey of the land, so if within two weeks they do not provide us with the (architectural) drawings, then we will pay them for the surveys and get somebody to do the drawings, Reynolds said.

When they did the survey, they sent up a bill that they wanted to be paid. The Tourism Product Development Company (TPDCo), in communication with the Tourism Enhancement Fund from which we get the money said we cannot get a million or two million off the entire project. We have to send in (a costing) for everything, which we communicated back to them. They (TEF) have been waiting for six months now. And that is something that is preliminary, and we need to get moving, he added.

Reynolds also expressed disappointment that the guard rails needed at a spot in West End in the resort town had still not been constructed by the council, months after a woman fell over the cliffs at that section of the roadway.

Unless we are waiting until somebody else falls over, it is pointless to just sit down here. There are a lot of times when we are here and not able to secure funding. Now we are in a situation where we did, and then the implementing agency is not implementing. I refuse to sit down here and be part of a talk shop. I am not about to become a part of that, Reynolds said.

When Western Focus contacted Mayor Bertel Moore, who is also the councillor for the Negril division, he said the fruit and vegetable market project was the responsibility of the Ministry of Local Government and Community Development and not the Westmoreland Parish Council. In addition, he said the council had received no funds from the TPDCo for the construction of the guard rails.

We havent gotten a dime from them, and they cant expect us to use our council funds to construct the rails. However, as it relates to the fruit and vegetable market, I am going to Kingston, so I will check on it for them at the ministry, he said.