Local government must do much better
THE LOCAL government elections will take place tomorrow, Monday, February 26. Election campaigns always include bashing one another and making the obligatory but [often] empty campaign promises.
It is likely that there will be a low voter turnout, and they will call it ‘voter apathy’, which blames voters for being indifferent. However, ‘apathy’ is a clever euphemism. The real reason for low voter turnout is voter frustration. The blame for this belongs squarely on the shoulders of the political parties.
The citizens that feel that there is something worth voting for will go out and vote. But many citizens are sick and tired of the same old, same old. They are fed up with choosing a side and then seeing many of the same problems existing. The political parties no longer have fundamentally different ideologies. Currently, one seems more unified and has been getting things that remained languishing for several years done. But scandals, incompetence, and corruption plague them both.
The website of the Ministry of Local Government and Community Development advertises its vision as “The premier government organisation in the Caribbean that facilitates the development of communities that can deliver sustainable First World services through modern, participatory, autonomous and adaptive systems for the benefit of all citizens”.
Sadly, hundreds of thousands of voiceless citizens are suffering because of poor community planning, unregulated and illegal constructions, incompetence, and corruption. Despite this, the local government website has the temerity to put “… areas of Community Development” at the top of the list of their roles and functions. Ostensibly, this is the area of the ministry’s greatest failings. Systemic ineptitude, sloth, and corruption have not only allowed, but they have also facilitated and encouraged the decline and destruction of many communities. Inevitably, this contributes to crime.
I can speak to several ridiculous examples of situations where the Ministry of Local Government and Community Development has failed citizens. I know of a family with several elderly individuals who are now suffering because someone decided to set up a nightclub almost in front of their family home of many years. The nightly noise is making them sick, but there is no help from local government.
Another family home has been besieged by Friday night noise and carousing from an illegal bar on premises directly in front of them. The ‘music’ is loud and laden with expletives and vile descriptions of sexual acts. This Christian family must bear their living hell because there is no help from local government.
SIDEWALK FOOD ESTABLISHMENTS
People freely establish [illegal and unhygienic] sidewalk food establishments and garages in plain view of all and sundry. These particular garages attract junked vehicles, parking across the gates of the neighbours, engine-revving noises, oil and grease on the road, and unsavoury characters, but despite the illegality and the complaints, there is no help from local government.
People are allowed to construct illegal buildings by ignoring the building codes, the covenants, the zoning, and existing plans. They set up huge commercial hubs in the middle of residential dwellings and in plain sight, yet the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) and the Kingston and St. Andrew Municipal Corporation (KSAMC) fail to notice and fail to act. Many citizens suffer because there is no help from local government.
Another example is of a [functioning] factory that was set up within a residential community. The daily noises were disturbing, and the nightly noises robbed the residential neighbours of their sleep. Subsequently, one lady had to seek refuge in her church, and her husband was confronted by the offender when someone at the KSAMC told the illegal factory operator that his neighbour had complained about him.
EXERCISE IS FUTILITY
I have been reliably informed that attempting to report a problem to the KSAMC is an exercise in futility. Several people have told me that getting through on the phone is incredibly difficult. And if they get over that hurdle and are transferred to the desk that handles complaints, the number usually rings out. But if they manage to get someone, the only individual allowed to take the complaint and issue a ‘ticket’ (a reference number) is usually either home sick, just left for the day, just stepped out, gone to the rest room, out to lunch, not coming in today, or not in yet. If the municipality were serious about its work, it would set up a dedicated hotline for citizens’ complaints.
Lack of accountability is a very serious problem at the KSAMC. The infamous ‘crab circle’ vendor case is testament to what can happen when government workers do not carry out their duties of intermittent checks for up-to-date permits and sanitary standards. No one has been held accountable for that debacle and no one ever will.
Despite a Television Jamaica exposé in 2021, the breaches at the development at 11 Charlemont Drive in St Andrew went ignored by NEPA and the KSAMC. It was [only] after the mess hit the fan that NEPA took action against one [scapegoat] employee, and the KSAMC is talking about their intended future improvement in the performance of their duties.
The local government is supposed to protect all citizens and communities not sit idly by or turn a blind eye to breaches. It is grossly unfair to have the value of properties plummet and neighbourhoods decline into criminal dens because of local government ineptitude and/ or corruption.