Streetlight joke

WESTERN BUREAU:

The promise of Local Government Minister, Desmond McKenzie, for 50 streetlights to be allocated for installation each year over the next two years, to each councillor islandwide, has been ridiculed and described as a big joke by councillors in the Hanover Municipal Corporation (HMC).

Chief Financial Officer and Clerk to the HMC, Romeo Daley, read a document to that effect, at the recent HMC monthly meeting, the contents of which was derived from McKenzie’s contribution to the Sectoral Debate in the House of Representatives on May 28.

During his debate presentation, McKenzie stated: “I am pleased to announce that an additional 22,800 streetlights will be installed across the country over the next two years. This means that each of the 228 divisions will have 50 streetlights installed each year.”

On being advised about the plans through a document from the Association of Local Government Authorities of Jamaica (ALGAJ), the HMC councillors expressed their disgust at the promise, against the background that some of them have been trying to get a few lights for areas in their respective divisions over the last two years, but to no avail.

“That (promise of 50 lights per division) is more than impossible, as we cannot get five per division over the last few years,” councillor for the Riverside division Daren Barnes argued.

“I personally made a request for two streetlights for sometime now, and nothing has happened,” councillor for Lucea Brian Chambers stated.

SCEPTICISM

In an interview with The Gleaner following the meeting, Mayor of Lucea Sheridan Samuels, the chairman of the HMC, also expressed scepticism about the promised streetlights, arguing that it might be coming now because of the “election fever in the air”.

“The document read in the meeting was a letter from ALGAJ outlining the aspects of the Sectoral Debate presentation made by the minister, wherein he announced that each division will be getting 50 streetlights per year,” he stated.

“The councillors see it (the promise for the streetlights) as a joke, because we were told before that we were entitled to 10 streetlights per division, and we were to write to the minister, which we all did, and to date we have not seen any,” he continued.

Samuels then rehashed other promises that he says were previously made to the councillors in the HMC, one involving 10 black water storage tanks per division, and another for 10 roads to be fixed per division, both of which, he said, have not materialised.

“We strongly believe that these promises are just election ploys, and as such we have no faith in that announcement of about 10 streetlights per division, as it can be regarded as just another promise, which is a comfort to a fool, and we are no fools,” he argued.

He noted that the HMC councillors would be appreciative if and when the lights arrive, if they do come before the next election, as there are several areas across the parish of Hanover that are in great need of the lights, and representation has been made for them for some time now.

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