By Balford Henry, News EditorPRESIDENT OF the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, Donovan Cover, believes that the parish's farming and business communities would achieve a lot more, if they were organised under the umbrella of the Chamber.
Mr. Cover told Manchester residents attending Tuesday's Gleaner Editors Forum at the Golf View Hotel in Mandeville, that a number of issues raised at the function could "quite easily" be addressed if they work together under the banner of the Chamber of Commerce.
"But, the business people in Mandeville are very reluctant to get involved with any organisation and I am taking this opportunity to make an appeal here to join the Chamber of Commerce," he told a wide cross-section of residents attending the forum, which dealt with various social and economic matters of concern to the parish.
He said that the Chamber was involved in trying to get farmers, for example, in the Porus area, to form themselves into a body that could access subsidies being offered by the Government.
He said that the Chamber was already involved in training small business people and was working with the Parish Council to get plans going ahead for the construction of an airport; but, he pointed out, only "a handful of people" were involved.
"You're probably saying that there is not enough happening, but if more people could get involved, maybe we would have a sufficiently strong lobby to make people hear what we are talking about," he said.
A number of concerns were raised by the parish's business and farming communities at the Forum.
Kendal farmer Paul Declue complained that the country was faced with a "vanishing Jamaica."
"We don't need another decade to see that Jamaica is vanishing, we're milking a walking cow and you cannot milk a walking cow. So, I am saying it's time for the government to go to the people, take their proposals and look at them. They need to look at the proposals of the people, look into them and see what will work and implement that," he suggested.
Local pharmacist and former Member of Parliament, Stafford Haughton, said that one of the main problems affecting the development of agriculture in the parish was the threat from praedial thieves: "We don't have a policy to encourage farmers and the praedial thieves have remained an ever-present threat to a lot of the farmers. It is bigger than we think it is," he warned.
There were arguments that Central Manchester, for example, was not a good area for farming and the best prospects were in South Manchester.
The residents were invited to write to the Parish Council about their concerns so that there could be a meeting of minds toward reaching consensus on how to move forward. But, Mr. Cover pointed out that the Parish Council suffered from a lack of resources, as there was "not even money to do what has to be done." He said that only 20 per cent of the property taxes collected reached the Council.
One contributor suggested that the problem with the farmers was that, "everybody grow the same stuff at the same time," which leads to gluts and poor prices. She suggested that farming needed to be better planned and price needed to be competitive with imports.
The town's lack of a night life was also cited as a problem affecting business development.
According to Dr. Herbert Thompson, head of the Northern Caribbean University in the town, the town closed down nightly 8 to 8:30, after which there was no entertainment, "What do you do when there is not even a movie theatre?"
The Rev. Fitz Glen of the Andrew's Memorial United Church, admitted that it was not easy to get people to go out at nights, even to church programmes. "I understand it is a Mandeville culture," he said, pointing out that he had only recently adopted the area. "But, there must be some way to get people to come out in the evenings. I think people will participate in positive things," he suggested.
Some contributors felt that Brooks Park could be developed into an attractive entertainment venue, not only to attract visitors but also to keep the youth from drifting to more exciting areas. But, a Manchester Parish Council spokesman pointed out that the Council had no control over the park and that it was the Manchester Football Committee which was in charge.
In terms of unemployment, businesswoman Jean Anderson said that one of the problems could be that people were more concerned about getting office jobs, instead of looking at skills training: "Where there's a skill, there will be work," she said.
One employer said that his company had received 20 job applications in just one week, most of which would end up in "file 13." "Everybody wants to sit behind a desk, but if you want those jobs you have to emigrate to Kingston."
Some contributors felt that the fact that the parish had over 11 tertiary educational institutions may have led to a concentration of people with certain skills for whom employment was not available in the environment.
