Health department slaps property owner with Pathways clean-up bill
Published:Wednesday | November 3, 2021 | 12:10 AMAlbert Ferguson/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
A multi-agency team, led by the St James Public Health Department, has been mandated to carry out a cleansing and sanitising operation at the controversial Pathways International Kingdom Restoration Ministries, which was the scene of a bloody ritual over a fortnight ago.
Lennox Wallace, who manages the public health portfolio in St James, said that a caveat was served on the owner of the property, who he refused to name, to recover the operational cost to carry out the cleaning exercise at the Paradise, Montego Bay-based church.
“Because of the urgency of the situation, we carried out the clean-up activities between ourselves, the fire department, the St James Municipal Corporation (StJMC), National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA), and a cleaning and sanitisation company to effect remedial measures there,” Wallace told The Gleaner yesterday.
Wallace said that while the total cost for the clean-up exercise had not yet been tallied, he was expecting it to be in the region of $350,000.
Wallace further noted that the additional costs incurred by the fire department, the NSWMA, and the StJMC will have to be tabulated to arrive at the final figure.
“What we will do is to lodge a caveat on the property until the owner of the property pays us the amount of money we would have expended to remove solid waste and to restore the property to a satisfactory state,” said Wallace.
Thirty-nine-year-old Taneka Gardner and 38-year-old Michael Scott Brown were killed at the church on October 17 during a service led by the now-deceased pastor, Kevin O. Smith, who had invited church members to turn up for a heavenly trip.
A third congregant, 18-year-old Kevon Plummer, was killed when the police stormed the church in response to reports of cult killings.
Thirty-nine of the congregants were charged with breaches of the Disaster Risk Management Act, while some 14 children were taken into state care.
Smith died in an accident as he was being transported to Kingston last week to be charged with murder.
Andre Ruddock, who reportedly slashed Gardner’s throat on Smith’s instruction, has since been charged with murder.