Still no go for GMRC Plan
WESTERN BUREAU – Despite a $12-million allocation to revive the now dormant Greater Montego Bay Redevelopment Company (GMRC), members still have not met for discussions on the GMRC plan that is now over a decade old.
The allocation was made by the National Housing Trust in April.
Chairman of the St James Parish Council and mayor of Montego Bay Noel Donaldson, who has expressed disappointment that the company has failed to meet, says he will try to convene a meeting soon.
“We cannot continue in abeyance with this matter (because) it is a matter of critical importance to the parish of St James,” he told reporters at a press briefing in the resort city on Monday.
Added Donaldson: “If we will have to proceed by dealing with the GMRC, but broadening the process in terms of involving a wider cross-section of citizens so that we can start the process, then that is how we will have to proceed.”
When the allocation was announced in April, the mayor said he would be convening a meeting of the GMRC the next month to discuss the way forward. That meeting did not take place. According to Donaldson, the meeting was cancelled because GMRC chairman Noel Sloley had requested an audit of the committee’s books.
Sloley could not be reached for comment on the issue but Winston Dear, the president of the Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce, has confirmed that the meeting was called off to facilitate the auditing of the books. Dear, who is also a trustee of the GMRC, also indicated that the audit still had not been completed and that it was pointless to hold a meeting without the audited books.
“The company (GMRC) was in abeyance for some years, so we will have to get all the paper work together, and it really doesn’t make sense having an annual general meeting without presenting audited accounts,” he told the Observer.
He added that while the completion of the audit has been long in coming, he was hopeful that it would be completed within another month. After that, he said, the committee would be able to meet.
The GMRC’s major objective is to provide the resort town of Montego Bay with a modern, workable development plan that would eventually be promulgated into a Development Order, through an Act of Parliament. A plan was completed at a cost of roughly $9 million a couple of years ago, but it has since been shelved amidst a variety of criticisms.
