THE SYMBOLIC ground-breaking ceremony in Montego Bay last weekend for the new Iberostar Resort and Spa joint venture project provides a useful backdrop to re-examine a vision for the future development of Montego Bay as articulated by Prime Minister P.J. Patterson recently.
The vision, he outlined, has come a quarter century after Montego Bay was accorded city status; and it would involve the Second City morphing into a world-class global business hub of the order of a Miami, a Hong Kong, or a Dubai.
The Prime Minister is relying heavily on entrepreneurial vision and private sector-led projects to fulfil the vision. But the Government itself has a central role in turning this vision into reality. The vision has attracted a good deal of interest. Not just Montego Bay but the entire country is functioning well below its considerable potential and we are all anxious to see things change. But a great deal of careful thinking and planning will have to be pumped into this vision for it to become reality.
On our letters page last week we carried some informed comments coming from a Jamaican writer in a Department of Geography in a US university. Among other things, the writer pointed out the critical importance of fairly autonomous local government and a good research-oriented university as part of the 'infrastructure' to drive the development envisaged. The two public universities in Jamaica, although at the other end of the island, have between them a considerable pool of talent and expertise to contribute to the elaboration of what at this stage is a rather rudimentary vision by a Prime Minister with legacy on his mind.
The University of Technology runs an Urban and Regional Planning Programme in its School of Building and Land Management. The UWI has a Department of Geography and various programmes involved with Planning, Development, Resource Management, and other related areas. And together they run a joint programme in Hospitality and Tourism, the mainstay of Montego Bay's development. Thus, we are not short of expertise to think this thing through and to do the complex integrated planning necessary to make the vision a reality. And our talent base extends to the diaspora always on the lookout to lend a hand back home.
What is needed is commitment, which will show up most clearly in financing. There is already, lying on a shelf somewhere, a Montego Bay Development Plan. The Prime Minister sketched out his vision for the Second City against the backdrop of 2004 being the worst year, to date, for murder in Jamaica. Development will require crime control, and we wish Operation Kingfish well. The infiltration of the drug trade into Montego Bay will have to be brought under control. Development of the order of which the PM dreams will require the control of indiscipline. These are the kinds of necessary contributions which the Government, led by Mr. Patterson, must be prepared to make as they walk the talk.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
