‘He ought to be ashamed of himself’

Western Bureau:

Lucea Mayor Sheridan Samuels has rejected claims by Wade Mars, the executive director of the Tourism Product Development Company Limited (TDPCo), that suggested inaction from his Hanover Municipal Corporation (HMC) office was stalling development works at the Fort Charlotte attraction in the parish capital.

Addressing a recent ribbon-cutting ceremony to mark the official reopening of the refurbished multipurpose court at the Lords playing field in Lucea, Mars had said TDPCo was awaiting Samuels’ sign off on documents to pave the way for work to start at Fort Charlotte.

However, Samuels has now accused Mars of playing politics while dismissing his claim as untruthful.

“This is raw politics coming out of the mouth of a civil servant, and he ought to be ashamed of himself when he finds out that we at the HMC are waiting on his team to fulfil a meeting date to go over the documents,” said Samuels while addressing Thursday’s monthly meeting of the HMC.

In trying to highlight works his agency has on the drawing board for Lucea, through TPDCo’s Spruce Up Jamaica programme, Mars said his agency was waiting for Samuels to sign off on documents that are sitting on his (Samuels’) desk, so that improvement works can be carried out at the Fort Charlotte site.

“We have some other projects that we intend to do in the town of Lucea, one of them is the additional rehabilitation in Fort Charlotte. There are some documents that are currently on the mayor’s desk that need to be signed in order for us to proceed,” Mars had said.

Mars further asked Bishop Robert Williams, whose church is in proximity to the Lord’s facility, to “nudge him (Samuels)” to sign the document, seemingly suggesting that his efforts had so far not been achieving the desired results.

“No amount of bad behaviour will prevent us (TPDCo) from executing our mandate, in terms of delivering the tourism product in Jamaica; Lucea or wherever it is,” said Mars.

However, in his response, Samuels pointed out that one meeting was held between officers from the HMC and TPDCo, following which the HMC officers went on a site visit and subsequently requested a second meeting with the TPDCo representatives.

“We have officially asked them to come in for us to discuss the scope of work. A date was set and they did not turn up. We did set another date, and that’s what we are waiting on,” said Samuels.

He said Mars’ comments were unwarranted.

Samuels told the meeting that TPDCo had done some preliminary work at Fort Charlotte that was carried out without the necessary guidance and would need to be corrected after a second meeting with the agency’s representatives.

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