Tuesday’s decision by the House to send the proposed municipality law to a joint parliamentary committee need not delay local government elections, but would likely mean that the people of Portmore would have to wait to vote for a separate council and mayor if the elections are held by month-end.

George Lee, the Portmore community activist who has led the campaign for the area to be declared a municipality, was disappointed by the potential setback. But according to Lee, an awareness by his group of the tight deadline caused them to press for the inclusion in the bill, the power for the local government minister to at any time name Portmore a municipality.

“We always knew the timetable for the passage of the Municipalities Act before local government elections by the end of March was very tight,” Lee told the Observer yesterday. “That is the reason why the bill, in Section 3, sub-section (2), gives the minister the power to declare Portmore a municipality.”

The effect, according to Lee, was to ensure that in the event that local government elections were held before the passage of the law, separate municipal elections could be held for Portmore after it came into force.

“Although we would have preferred to have our municipal elections for the post of mayor of Portmore take place during the next local government elections, we feel confident that if it does not take place then, it will happen not long after,” Lee added.

Parish council elections were last held in 1998 and one should have taken place in 1991. However, the poll was twice postponed, ostensibly to allow for further local government reform, including, possibly, the collapsing of the 13 existing authorities into perhaps four regional bodies as well as a series of municipalities with directly-elected mayors.

Although a green paper was prepared by former local government minister Arnold Bertram, little real debate took place on the proposals.

Last month, Bertram’s successor, Portia Simpson Miller, told the parish councils to use the next year to come up with their own proposals for reform, but said that Portmore would have its directly-elected mayor in polls that Prime Minister P J Patterson had said he intended to hold by the end of this month.

When Simpson Miller took the municipalities bill to the House this week, the Opposition spokesman on local government, Pearnel Charles, raised several concerns about the approach and proposed that a referendum should be held in those communities earmarked for municipality status.

Under the proposed legislation, a community can be declared a municipality if it has no less than 50,000 inhabitants; that not less that seven per cent of the inhabitants who are on the voters’ list sign a petition in favour of the status; and representation is made by registered community organisations.

The decision by the minister has to be subject to affirmative resolution by Parliament.

However, the bill made clear that the arrangements outlined “shall not apply to an order made in respect of Portmore”, giving Simpson Miller the leeway to, at anytime, name the 160,000 population community a municipality.

However, Portmore, whose bid for municipal status is backed by several community organisations, has met all the criteria now before Parliament. But Charles, in Tuesday’s debate, insisted that the outlines required further study.

“The consideration for municipal status (should) based on a referendum of the citizens of the locality which should show at least 51 per cent support, instead of the existing proposal that not less than seven per cent of the inhabitants of the area sign a petition requesting municipality,” he said.

He also argued that members of the municipal council should not sit on parish councils and that there should be arrangements that municipalities were financially viable.

In the face of Charles’ concerns, Simpson Miller agreed to send the matter to a joint select committee of the House and Senate for consideration, although she was adamant that Portmore was ready for the transition.

“The people of Portmore did excellent preparatory work and fully deserve the honour of being the pilot in achieving municipal status with the right to elect their own mayor,” she said.

Lee told the Observer that he recognised the “right of the Opposition to represent the interest of people” and therefore having its concerns discussed by the joint select committee was legitimate.

“But our position is that the process should be quick and should not hold up the move toward municipality,” Lee said. “The community would really be quite upset if this process was to take any length of time. We think the time has come for municipality and we would like to see that exercise move as expeditiously as possible.”