Campbell rakes JLP councillors for shoddy roads
BEING IN the unenviable position of having no councillors umbilically linked to his People’s National Party (PNP) operating inside the St Ann North West constituency, two-term Member of Parliament Dr Dayton Campbell has fired a salvo at the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) local government representatives.
Campbell said that councillors were not being held to account for their poor performances despite divisional allocations.
“Somehow they get away with doing very little because people blame the MP for things that the councillors are responsible for,” Campbell lamented outside of his constituency office in bustling Brown’s Town last week.
“So if you go through the constituency, you probably see a lot of bad roads, and if you buck up a Labourite in there, they probably a go wah cuss me ‘bout the road. It’s a JLP Government with a JLP councillor and they want to blame me for the road – a parish council road!”
Campbell lost his strongest division – Brown’s Town – in the last local government election but argued that his performance as a member of parliament has been above par.
“Of course, I would rather to have them because they get an allocation, too. Councillors do not work with MPs. They are independently elected; ... They, too, get their allocation because a lot of persons think that MPs are supposed to fund councillors, and it’s just not true,” Campbell stressed.
“The councillors, when you add up all of them in a constituency, more times than not, they spend more money than the MP,” he added.
The other divisions include Dry Harbour, Sturge Town, and Bamboo.
The PNP politician disclosed to The Gleaner that all the PNP councillor caretakers have been replaced.
The next local government polls are due in November, but a question mark still lingers over whether Prime Minister Andrew Holness will hold them simultaneously with a general election on the same ballot.