Portmore should get part of highway earnings, says Hinds

For whom the road tolls

BY INGRID BROWN Senior staff reporter browni@jamaicaobserver.com

Thursday, February 09, 2012

MAYOR of Portmore Keith Hinds says he will be lobbying the operators of Highway 2000 to contribute five per cent of toll earnings to establish a road and an infrastructure development fund for the municipality.

Hinds told the Observer that he first made the request some time ago and would continue to press, if not for five per cent, another amount that would help the fund.

"Each year, the toll increases and the Portmore leg of Highway 2000 has been the main financier for the toll road operations, and so it is important that the operators give back something," Hinds said.

According to the mayor, toll operators in other jurisdictions have been known to contribute significantly to the welfare of the communities in which they operate.

"So I can't see why it cannot happen here in Jamaica if it happens elsewhere in the world," Hinds said.

However, while he wants the money to kick-start such a fund, Hinds said the municipality was willing to settle for a recreational park similar to the Kingston-based Emancipation Park, as he was optimistic that the toll road operators might be quicker accede to the latter request.

This park, he said, could be constructed on empty lands across from the Portmore Mall.

Meanwhile, the first-term mayor said a lot of the municipality's financial problems could be solved if more residents were paying property tax.

"If we can get property tax from 49-50 per cent up to 75-80 per cent, then there will be much more that the Council can do," Hinds said.

According to the mayor, successive governments have promised Portmore funding to undertake various projects, but have failed to honour their promises.

"I am hoping that in this administration we will be more successful in getting that," Hinds said.

Among the developmental issues he is hoping will be addressed is the use of lands recently acquired by the council for income-generating activities.

"Portmore is a dormitory community and so you must at some point seek to put a commercial development around Portmore so that persons can work within this municipality," Hinds said.

"You cannot have approximately half a million persons getting dressed and going somewhere else to spend their money, then you ask of us the Council to find funds to do all the things that we need to do," he added.

Mayor Hinds insisted that the council had done a tremendous job in the municipality, but maintains that the responsibility of central government has not been as forthcoming as it ought to be.

"We have some massive drains which would take more than $40 million to clean one, and those are central government issues that need to be dealt with because when it is not dealt with, it appears as if the council is not doing anything," he said.

In responding to residents' concerns about the council's failure to clean the drains to control mosquito infestation in the municipality, Hinds said the council had done what it was supposed to do and it was up to the Public Health Department to do the rest.

"The council has no licence to deal with chemical spraying. ...People keep ascribing the responsibility of mosquito-spraying to the council, (but) it is a public health issue and it must be dealt with by the public health department," he said.

Hinds, who intends to make a second bid for office in the upcoming local government election following an unsuccessful run in the December 29 parliamentary poll, also sought to defend his performance in the municipality.

"My performance in Portmore speaks for itself. But, in terms of confidence (of winning), one has to look to the people as they are the ones who put you in and take you out," he said.

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Portmore should get part of highway earnings, says Hinds