Mayor of Kingston Desmond McKenzie on Wednesday denied reports that street people would be removed from the streets of the Corporate Area during the Cricket World Cup 2007.

“This is one mayor, this is one administration of the Kingston and St Andrew Corporation (KSAC) that would not even contemplate for one moment removing even one person from the streets of the city because of World Cup cricket. I don’t want a repeat of what happened in the second city happening here in Kingston,” McKenzie said.

On a media tour of some of the roads being patched and resurfaced for use as access points to Sabina Park, the mayor said that his office had been getting queries, including one from a senior official of the Ministry of Health.

The mayor made it clear that any relocation of street people would have to be structured, and should be done on a permanent basis.

“It can’t be done overnight,” he remarked.

Asked if there were other agencies, apart from the KSAC, that have the jurisdiction to remove street people, McKenzie replied:

“I don’t care if there is another agency that has jurisdiction; I’m saying it can’t happen. I will not allow it to happen. We will not allow people to gather up human beings like cattle and dump them into some unknown area. I’m going to fight against this vigorously if that is on the drawing board.”

McKenzie said that there were more that 300 street people in Downtown Kingston.

On July 15, 1999, in an event which came to be known as the Montego Bay street people scandal, some 30 of that city’s homeless and mentally ill were transported before daybreak to a mudlake in St Elizabeth and abandoned there.