BLENHEIM, Hanover – Jamaica Labour Party leader Bruce Golding has blasted the government for not allocating funds to rebuild the house which replicates the building where National Hero and founder of the JLP, Sir Alexander Bustamante, was born in 1884.

The house, a national monument, was built in the 1960s, but was destroyed by bush fire just over a year ago.

The government is yet to allocate funding for the rebuilding of the house, and this has angered members of the Opposition.

On Friday, Golding, who was addressing a civic ceremony in Blenheim to mark the 122nd anniversary of the birth of the national hero, said it was disgraceful that after almost one year, the structure had not been replaced.

“I consider it to be a disgrace that we are back here today, and all we are looking at is ashes,” said Golding, who, a year ago, attended a civic function at the site to mark Bustamante’s 121st birthday.

As a national monument, the Jamaica National Heritage Trust (JNHT) is charged with the responsibility to preserve the monument.

But, Golding emphasised that he was not blaming the trust for the delay in the construction of the house.

“.I don’t want to blame professor (Verene) Shepherd (JNHT chairman); I don’t want to blame the heritage trust either, because the heritage trust would not in its normal allocation have any provision to undertake exceptional expenditure, such as restoring Busta’s (Bustamante) monument,” Golding said. “That requires a decision somewhere else which would then pass on to the heritage trust for them to execute,” he added.

Saying that he was “deeply upset” about the matter, Golding pointed out that a few years ago the “birth home” of National Hero Norman Manley was also destroyed by fire, but he noted that the house was restored within a “matter of months”.

Norman Manley, a former prime minister of Jamaica, was the founder of the ruling People’s National Party and the National Workers Union, which is affiliated to the party.

Arguing that Bustamante does not deserve to be treated in “this manner”, Golding said that he met with officials of the JNHT last week in an effort to have the house rebuilt.

He said he was advised by the JNHT, that the agency expects to recover $1 million in insurance proceeds arising from the fire. However, the JLP leader explained that the money would not be sufficient to restore the building.

He added that the JLP and the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union (BITU) have pledged to provide the additional amount required to restore the house.

“At the meeting with the heritage trust, I told them that whatever more you need over the one million, you will be getting from the insurance company to build back Bustamante house, start work on it as soon as possible because the BITU and the JLP will provide the rest of the money,” he explained.

Bustamante, Jamaica’s first prime minister and founder of the BITU, officially retired from active politics in 1967. He died at the age of 93 on August 6, 1977.

Over the years, a civic function has been held at his birthplace in Blenheim to commemorate his birth.

Golding also used the occasion of the ceremony to chide the government for not improving the aesthetics of the graveside of former prime minister and JLP leader Hugh Lawson Shearer who died almost two years ago.

“Mr Shearer’s graveside is exactly the way we left it the day he was buried, with an ugly piece of concrete slab which doesn’t even have his name on it,” Golding noted.

The Opposition leader was yesterday expected to write to Prime Minister P J Patterson requesting that an appropriate monument be erected to mark Shearer’s graveside.