THE St James Parish Development Committee (PDC) has refused to accept responsibility for selecting and co-ordinating this year’s parish Labour Day project, a job formerly conducted by the St James Parish Council. Labour Day will be marked on May 23.

According to PDC chairman, Mark Kerr-Jarrett, this refusal is based on the Ministry of Local Government’s failure to formally notify the PDC, on a timely basis, of its new role as project selector.

“With just less than a month to go, I believe it’s inappropriate and without any prior warning… it’s either that the ministry has made a terrible blunder or there is severe chaos within its administrative and organisational structure,” Kerr-Jarrett said.

He said he was informed of the PDC’s new responsibility of selecting and co-ordinating the parish project via a telephone message from chairman of the National Labour Day Committee, Thyra Heaven.

“Something as important as the Labour Day project requires a significant amount of planning. And to all of a sudden say, quite casually and over the phone, that the PDC was in charge of it, I’m not in approval of it,” Kerr-Jarrett said. “I do not intend for the PDC to take on that responsibility. We are not going to do it. We have not had sufficient time to prepare and we would not do the project justice.”

In response, Heaven said while she can understand Kerr-Jarrett’s concerns, she would like to see the PDC rise to the challenge and do the selection anyway.

“I understand Mr Kerr-Jarrett’s problem, where he is coming from… but as a leader I would love if he would just take charge and give some direction and focus…,” she said. “It’s the same goal that we are trying to achieve — the development of communities out there and sustainability of projects that will benefit the community.”

The committee chairman said that at least two other PDCs had already selected their Labour Day projects, despite not having been formally notified.

“We called and said we expect you to select a parish project for Labour Day and the concentration will be on basic schools,” she said. “Some of them went ahead and made contact with the education officer and they just selected some school without questioning.”

The Trelawny PDC has selected the Hope Basic school while their Hanover counterpart has selected the Success and Lances Bay Basic Schools.

And while Heaven charged that other partners in St James were available to select the project if Kerr-Jarrett refused to change his stance, she acknowledged that the PDC was vital to the project.

“The PDC includes the parish council and community leaders, non-governmental organisations and all those ministries that make an input,” Heaven said. “So… to ask the PDC would mean the involvement of a wide cross-section of the people in the parish representing various interests groups.”