Byron Buckley, News EditorJAMAICA LABOUR Party parish councillors yesterday challenged estimates of expenditure on road and drain rehabilitation presented to Parliament on Tuesday by Transport and Works Minister, Robert Pickersgill.
Mr. Pickersgill told the House of Representatives that more than $6 billion had been allocated to parish councils for infrastructural repairs over the last two financial years. Among his disclosure, Pickersgill said the St. Mary Parish Council, had received $77 million and $110 million, respectively, over the two years.
But, speaking on behalf of JLP parish councillors at the party's Holborn Road headquarters in St. Andrew yesterday, Mayor of Port Maria, Bobby Montaque, said that the works minister "owes us a bit of money in St. Mary and we intend to collect every red cent." Mayor Montaque argued that the St. Mary Parish Council had received a little under $30 million in 2003/2004, a third of what Minister Pickersgill had indicated in Parliament.
MINISTER SHOULD BE IMPEACHED
"We also believe the minister should be impeached for misleading the honourable house of Parliament and the nation," added Montaque.
While maintaining that his figures were correct, Mr. Pickersgill admitted to The Gleaner on Thursday that, "if I conveyed the impression that all the funds received by the parish councils were for road repairs, that was not the case."
On Monday mayors from 12 JLP-dominated parish councils attempted to deliver a letter to the Prime Minister as a group, but they were tear-gassed by the police on the ground of breaking a law prohibiting public assembly and marches within 200 yards of Jamaica House.
Spokesmen for the group insisted yesterday that they had no intention of marching during Monday's events. However, they said they were prepared to take further protest action, if attempts by Prime Minister P.J. Patterson to meet their demand for $3.2 billion to repair hurricane damaged roads and drains did not materialise.
After meeting with JLP mayors and councillors on Thursday afternoon, the Prime Minister instructed the infrastructure sub-committee of Cabinet, at its meeting next Monday, to examine the totality of the damage to the country's infrastructure. The meeting is to be chaired by Dr. Omar Davies, Minister of Finance and Planning, and will consider the funding requirements for roads, drains and bridges across the island.
