Parish council committee raps health dept, NSWMA

Saturday, November 21, 2009 7:38 AM

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Clinton Pickering

Saturday, November 07, 2009

MONTEGO BAY, St James - Two key government agencies on Wednesday earned the ire of the St James Parish Council's Public Health Committee after representatives failed to show up at the monthly meeting.

Committee members said it was useless discussing issues related to the Public Health Department and the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA) as there was no representative of the agencies present.

The meeting, which was scheduled to start at 10:00 am, did not get underway until 10:52 am as chairman Roger Dowe had to wait until there was a quorum of five.

The council's director of administration and clerk to the committee, Claudette Corbett, tendered an apology received from the Public Health Department, which said "it had to attend an event outside of the parish".

The excuse, however, did not find favour with some committee members who questioned whether the entire Public Health Department had to be at this event and who was left to attend to their responsibilities.

But the absence of the NSWMA for the third consecutive meeting irked the committee more.

The committee chairman received full endorsement when he instructed that "a strong letter be written to the National Solid Waste reminding them of their obligations".

Opposition councillor Avrie Rosegreen said the NSWMA was operating "as if it is above reproach", and described their absence as out of "order and disgraceful".

According to the minutes of the October meeting, Councillor Wilbert Whittingham told his colleagues that he was dissatisfied that representatives from the NSWMA were not in attendance.

".There was a pile-up of garbage on King Street and that commercial garbage was being collected and no collections were being done in the inner communities," the minutes quoted the councillor as saying.

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