Editorial | Bolstering local government

Kingston’s mayor, Andrew Swaby, advanced a truism with his call this week for an update of Jamaica’s small building code in the wake of Hurricane Melissa that caused widespread devastation in the west of the island.

However, this observation ought not to stand on its own.

The hurricane provides a platform for greater assertion by local government bodies, including Mr Swaby’s Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation (KSAMC), of their powers, where these exist, as well as to seek greater space and freedom to respond to the needs of the communities they serve, especially in times of crisis.

In Mr Swaby’s case, especially with respect to his suggestion about the building code, he might start with a more public facing discussion of the findings and recommendations of an independent panel that he asked earlier this year to examine the KSAMC’s development approval and planning processes.

At the same time, as the chairman of the largest (by population served), as well as politically and economically most influential municipal council, Mr Swaby should consider initiating, and possibly leading, a non-partisan conversation on capacity-building in local government, and advancing the concept of subsidiarity, upon which the local government system is supposedly built.

This will mean political parties releasing, as this newspaper has in the past argued, their municipal representatives from their vassalhood to MPs and constituency caretakers. The councillors, too, must demand their liberation and independence of action.

WIDESPREAD PUBLIC PERCEPTION

Melissa, a Category 5 hurricane, cut a swathe of destruction across Jamaica’s western parishes, killing over 40 persons and causing, by initial conservative estimates, more than US$6 billion in damage. Tens of thousands of homes were damaged or destroyed by the hurricane’s 185 miles per hour winds (with gusts of over 250mph) and floods associated with its rain. Nearly 40,000 people are displaced.

It is against this backdrop that Mayor Swaby, whose municipality was spared the worst of Melissa’s wrath, has called for a review of the residential building code, which requires small residential buildings to be able to withstand hurricane force winds of at least 155 mph. Melissa was not only significantly above that, but its intensity was unprecedented.

Moreover, with global warming and climate change, the frequency of such powerful storms has increased.

“This is a clear signal that we must update and enforce the regulations under the Building Act,” Mr Swaby told Tuesday’s monthly meeting of the KSAMC.

The latter point is important.

Under the law, municipal corporations approve and police the execution of building permits in their jurisdictions.

It was the widespread public perception, as well as court rulings to this effect, that the KSAMC often falls short of its obligations, which caused Mr Swaby, who became chairman of the council in 2024, to commission the review by three respected building professionals.

While the report, presented in July, was apparently circulated to members of the council and is to be reviewed by KSAMC’s building committee, there hasn’t been a discernibly robust engagement of the public on its conclusions and recommendations.

In light of Mr Swaby’s latest assertion, that must change.

END VASSALHOOD

But the responsibilities of local government entities go well beyond the approval of building permits. They are to provide a wide range of other services to their communities.

However, in the aftermath of Melissa, the weaknesses and incapacities of the municipal corporations, as The Gleaner previously highlighted, were badly exposed.

In western Jamaica, it would be expected that the local government apparatus, and their associated parish disaster committees, would be the first responders. However, most seemed dazed while awaiting the response of the national government.

That, in large measure, was the result of the centralisation of authority in the national political leadership and bureaucracy. Concomitant with this has been diminution of the local government, even beyond the framework of the law.

Municipal corporations have little financial resources or technical skills with which to do their jobs, which often encourages actions that are inimical to good governance.

Jamaica has embedded local government as part of its Constitution, grounded in the belief that some decisions are best taken closest to where they impact citizens. The response to Melissa should be one of these occasions.

However, the municipal corporations were largely missing in action and their members and leaders appeared as lost as, and bleated like, ordinary citizens. If Jamaica believes in the worth and survival of local government, the causes of their failures must be honestly analysed and rectified.

First, the municipal authorities, council leaders and members, must have the ambition to become what the institutions were intended to be. They must therefore end vassalhood.

Further, while far from being a perfect law, the Local Governance Act provides substantial room for ambitious leaders of municipal governments to assert authority, embrace communities, and to operate with the kind of transparency that builds public trust. They should grasp these opportunities.

Mr Swaby, to his credit, has shown flickerings of what is possible. But far from enough.

He should expand on his early initiatives and invite his fellow mayors and councillors into a fuller deliberation on how to make local government of real service to its communities.