‘Not one red cent’

Councillors at the Manchester Municipal Corporation expressed collective frustration on Thursday, arguing that they are being sidelined from hurricane-relief efforts despite being the officials closest to affected communities.

“Sometimes we wonder if we are children of a lesser God as councillors,” Mandeville Mayor Donovan Mitchell stated at Thursday’s monthly meeting.

He urged the Government to adopt practices used in developed countries, where local representatives are treated as first responders in disaster recovery.

“The Ministry [of Local Government] has to do better. The Government has to do better. Councillors have to be involved. There are 230 of us. Nobody knows the country better than we do, and it is pathetic,” he said.

Mitchell also criticised the ministry for failing to deliver the financial support needed for disaster preparation and recovery. He said the ministry had pledged $500,000 to each councillor after Hurricane Beryl in July last year, but those funds have never been released. As a result, he is not optimistic about a new commitment of $250,000 to assist with recovery after Hurricane Melissa.

“When a citizen’s housetop is blown off, all of that, and you can’t help – yes, you can empathise with them and say ‘yes’ – but listen mi, faith without works is dead,” he said.

His concerns were echoed by Jamaica Labour Party councillor for Craighead, Omar Miller, who said councillors “have not received one red cent” to aid in hurricane relief.

“When I go into my division, people are not looking for me to send them to somebody else. They’re looking for me to help them because they voted for me. And I think it is very disrespectful at this particular time [that we are not getting the resources],” he said, adding that he feels hurt and disrespected.

Andrew Smith, councillor for the New Green division, added that councillors are the true first responders.

“Most of the time, people don’t ask for the member of parliament because a you dem see on a daily basis. It’s us as councillors they relate to,” he said.

Smith argued that the current allocation is grossly inadequate.

“If you get $250,000, weh ya go do wid it?” he asked. “If we get dat money, say, for example we a go do some packages, and the package cost $8,000, is 31 people … . You haffi go use night and hide and give out dem deh packages deh,” he said, drawing agreement from colleagues.

Mayor Mitchell also criticised the slow pace of damage assessments across the parish and called for better coordination among agencies. He reiterated the need for updated building codes that reflect the realities of Jamaica’s hurricane-prone climate.

“You can’t just put in back in a housetop because as di same breeze come next year, the housetop is gone again,” he said.

The call for stronger construction standards was also raised at the Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation meeting earlier this week. Kingston Mayor Andrew Swaby urged revisions to Jamaica’s Small Building Code, noting that while it currently requires structures to withstand winds of at least 155 mph, Hurricane Melissa reached 185 mph. The code governs one- and two-family dwellings and small buildings, promoting reinforced concrete designs capable of withstanding hurricane-force winds and earthquakes measuring up to 6.5 on the Richter Scale.

sashana.small@gleanerjm.com