BROKEN PROMISES

WESTERN BUREAU:

As the year draws to a close, several residents of Trelawny are taking the nation’s political and other leaders to task for failing to deliver on numerous promises.

In fact, some residents believe they were deliberately misled and taken advantage of by those who once appeared to care about their needs but have since failed to follow through on their commitments.

“These are the kinds of things that cause people to lose faith in politicians and other public officials,” said Bev Smith as she rued the yet-to-be-mounted Usain Bolt statue in Water Square, Falmouth.

“Bolt is celebrated the world over as the greatest sprinter ever, but these people refuse to properly celebrate him in the parish of his birth,” she contended.

Plans for the Water Square monument were first announced in 2019 by Sports Minister Olivia Grange. She said it would have been mounted in short order. However, despite preparatory work, which included the Jamaica Defence Force creating a base for the statue, nothing else has happened, much to the chagrin of the residents of the parish.

Parnassus housing project

Another unfulfilled promise involves Prime Minister Andrew Holness’ pledge to build 720 housing units on former sugar lands at Parnassus, on the outskirts of Clark’s Town, as part of efforts to revitalise the town. However, residents claim that since the announcement, “not even a spoonful of sand has been dropped in the area”.

“Just a stone’s throw away from here there is a place named Parnassus. The Government of Jamaica, through the Housing Agency of Jamaica, will be building 720 new housing solutions. We will be breaking ground for that this year – in fact, in another couple of months. When those are built, you are going to have an influx of new people coming into the area in addition to the people who live in the area, who will get some of those houses,” Holness said in February as he campaigned for the local government elections.

They are also voicing dissatisfaction with the Government’s failure to repair the road between Clark’s Town and Duncans, which has become a series of ditches, making it a hazardous route for motorists and pedestrians.

In Falmouth, Mayor Collen Gager is facing criticism for not repairing the historic Albert George Market in Water Square and for not fulfilling his promise to implement a cashless system at the municipal market, a move that was expected to boost the town’s income.

Promises to reopen the Wakefield Post Office and the Wakefield Market, which were made by Local Government Minister Desmond McKenzie and Tova Hamilton, the member of parliament for Trelawny Northern, are also drawing frustration from some residents.

The post office, which served Wakefield, Dromilly, Unity, Bunker’s Hill, Friendship, Deeside, and Hampden, was closed in 2021 due to the deteriorated state of its building.

During a tour in October 2023, McKenzie and Hamilton said they would be moving to retrofit an unused market building in their community to house a new post office, adding that a container would be brought in to provide indoor space for the post office on the advice of the Postal Corporation of Jamaica.

In Ulster Spring, anger is mounting over the failure to construct a $42-million fire station, which has been promised since 2017.

In July 2021, McKenzie said ground would be broken for the construction of the fire station within a month. Although ground was broken and the site was prepared in 2022, it remains abandoned and overgrown.

Similarly, more than 1,000 residents of Spicy Hill, who were promised piped water through a $34-million water project, are heading into the new year disheartened by the unaddressed situation they were led to believe would soon be resolved.

editorial@gleanerjm.com