THE EDITOR, Madam:
DR. ARCHER'S well positioned newspaper articles on Local Government reform from a planner's perspective are all very weak. To argue that Mr. Desmond Henry's call for county councils is irrelevant is to miss the critical point of redesigning Jamaica's local government structures to be more cost-effective in terms of certain types of (costly) service delivery and at the same time deliver a sophisticated government infrastructure with proactive decision-making responsibilities (to rural Jamaica) in order to generate grassroots development in general and the timely/focused maintenance of the physical infrastructure on which development depends.
The two chronic gaps in her arguments are:
1) The lack of appreciation for the need to reconcile and address the historical (organic) dynamics of Jamaica's spatial political and economic structures (all from the perpective of exploitative highly centralised colonial urban-rural systems) and
2) The need to design internally sound and cost-effective administrative zones given the context of a weak national economy.
Thus, counties, with their relatively wide and varied geographic resource base, are in the best position to maximise fiscal resource inflows at the lowest per capita rate of taxation and operational cost (given the use of appropriate but expensive technologies such as GIS etc.), all towards the timely delivery of more costly capital-intensive service delivery.
Nowhere in Dr. Archer's arguments do I see any analysis of the 'historical spatial political distortion' of the island's unitary political structure on regional economic inequities within the context of European-induced Third World Urban Primacy which neither political party has successfuly addressed.
While I do agree with some of Dr. Archer's points, (such as the need for comprehensive, integrated organisational planning and interaction on the part of government ministries at the local government level) I'm not sure if we share the same appreciation of relative role of spatial political systemic forces (i.e. Unitary versus Federal) in retarding or promoting indigenous rural/hinterland development. This is the missing link in urban systems planning as far as jamaica is concerned.
I am etc.,
GARFIELD O. WHITTAKER
E-mail: shugapro@aol.com
Via Go-Jamaica
