Erica James-King, staff reporterWESTERN BUREAU
extortion is having a severe impact on the building industry, as scores of construction companies cower in fear and concede to the demands of hoodlums.
The problem has assumed crisis proportions with reports of contractors paying out hundreds of thousands of dollars to hoodlums. Some are even now forced to factor extortion money into the cost of projects.
"It's at the mammoth stage and you can hardly say it won't get any worse," complained Cedrick Richards, president of the Incorporated Master-builders Association of Jamaica (IMBAJ), who is also Chairman of the Joint Consultative Com-mittee (JCC), the umbrella group of sub-sector representatives within the industry. The JCC had highlighted extortion as one of the major problems facing the sector, in its report to Parliament last January.
The St. Andrew South police division is currently investigating a case where extortionists have been demanding $200,000 from a contractor on a construction site in the Hunts Bay community. Deputy Superintendent Derrick Knight, Crime Chief for the St. Andrew South Police Division, who made the disclosure in an interview with The Sunday Gleaner, explained that the contractor complained to the lawmen that the problem was hindering the progress of work on the site.
Some persons in the Masterbuilders who did not wish to be identified, told The Sunday Gleaner that there are cases of builders who have to be forking out a maximum of "$300,000 monthly to extortionists" with the aim of preventing harm to workers, theft of materials and work stoppages orchestrated by self-styled security personnel. One contractor said that work on the Whitewater Housing Project in St. Catherine was affected by extortion and some employees were actually afraid of working on the site.
"There was a case of a truck driver who was hauling sand, who refused to pay extortion, and they stole some of the sand in retaliation for his not co-operating with them. When he continued to refuse to pay the blackmailers he was eventually killed," the contractor reported.
The White Water Housing project falls within the St. Catherine South Police Division, but checks with that department reveals that no formal report of extortion at the site was lodged with the police. However, head of the Division, Superintendent Dorm Harrison, points out that although his division has no lodged reports on extortion, "intelligence gathered by the police indicates that every major building project in his St. Catherine division are hounded by unscrupulous persons seeking money in exchange for the safety of the contractors and workers on the site, and the security of the material used at the site."
He adds: "In many cases, out of fear for their lives, these demands are met by the foremen and or contractors."
Supt. Harrison reports that sometimes even small home owners doing home expansion in Portmore, are being harassed for money. They complain informally to the police but do not give the names of the criminals who might be threatening them. In cases like these, he notes, the police will patrol the street where the affected homeowner resides, with the intention of staving off any trouble that might occur when the demands of wrongdoers are not met.
But some people are wary about going to the police with their problem, The Sunday Gleaner was told. Sources contend that in some cases the police do refer contractors to "area dons", in response to their request for protection at construction sites.
The police have denied the claims and have chided contractors for being too silent on the matter. Some lawmen have pointed to the incident two years ago when 57 men were detained by the St. Catherine North Police division, after allegedly invading a construction site on Brunswick Avenue, Spanish Town demanding work and threatening to halt business activities if they did not get jobs. In fact, the St. James police say that on several occasions there have been rumours of extortion rackets at building sites but no complaints were made to the police, despite several meetings with the business community.
Contractors in the Corporate Area have also come under criticisms from the lawmen, who believe that too many of them see it as "legitimate business" to work out arrangements with area dons and their henchmen.
Deputy Superintendent Steve McGregor, Head of Operations in Kingston East, claims that some contractors have arrangements where in exchange for their safety and the security of the site, they agree to employ a quota of persons from the area where the construction is taking place, even if many of the persons employed do not have the requisite skills. He says it's not "social justice or conscience when certain building contractors employ people from communities where the site is located. It is instead blackmail."
Another example of extortion is the Washington Boulevard Road Project. Communication officer with the National Works Agency, Vando Palmer told The Sunday Gleaner that the Washington Boulevard project which has substantially been completed, was plagued by that blight.
"There were about 33 killings which did not take place at the site, but which directly or indirectly related to the Boulevard Road Project. You must realise that the Boulevard project cuts across different volatile communities of different political persuasions and this sometimes created conflicts between construction workers and residents and sub-contractors and residents in the vicinity of the project. When workers crossed certain border lines in the area of the project they could be killed."
Mr. Palmer added that in one instance "a male worker took a break and was riding his bicycle to get back to work when he was gunned down."
Meanwhile, the NWA communications officer is also confirming that the South Gully and North Gully Drainage Projects in the Second City experienced similar extortion problems and clashes between surrounding communities and construction workers. Mr. Palmer discloses that his agency is now having serious difficulties finding a contractor to repair the King Street Fording in Montego Bay, which is near to the tough inner-city community of Canterbury. The Sunday Gleaner understands that contractors who have been approached by the NWA have presented bids of up to one hundred million dollars higher than the Transport and Work's Ministry's estimate of the value of the job. It is believed that the bids have been steep, as the contractors anticipate that they will have to pay extortionists and other touts at the site, if they want the job to progress without conflicts.
Just last Monday, at Six Miles in Kingston, a dispute between men seeking employment at a site where a gully was being cleared ended in tragedy for one man. The Constabulary Communication Network confirmed that the Paul Watson, 21, of a Brook Avenue, address in St. Andrew was killed.
But what is irking some representatives of the construction sector, is that several political officials continue to pretend that extortion does not exist in the building industry. They are warning the politicians "unless they do all in their power to work with the police to correct the problem, it will grow by leaps and bounds."
