Montego Bay, St James – In place of their ambitious pre-Cricket World Cup (CWC) beautification drive which failed to get off in time, city officials have now planned a more general clean-up operation for this tourist resort in the coming week.

The Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce (MBCC) will join forces with the Tourism Product Development Company (TPDCo), the St James Parish Council and the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA) to carry out the programme, chamber president Pauline Reid said yesterday.

“As a chamber we are still going to continue to work with these agencies to see what we can do in the next few days to really clean up Montego Bay and make it look a little better,” Reid told the Sunday Observer.

Last week, Reid drew the ire of the Tourism Minister Aloun Assamba for describing the slow pace of the beautification project as “disgraceful”. “We are just disappointed that the level of beautification that we were expecting to be in place has not happened and no doubt will not happen,” the chamber president said of her outburst.

She said the revised clean-up work should be implemented in another three to five days.

But while expressing a desire to participate in the cleaning effort, Mayor Noel Donaldson did not believe that this last-minute effort would yield the results necessary “to really showcase the tourist mecca in the best way”.

“Based upon the Government’s failure to provide the necessary funding, either to the Chamber of Commerce or the St James Parish Council, and given the condition of the North Gully and some of the various streets that we have requested funding to do repairs on, I think the city is going to come across in a negative light,” he predicted.

However, Donaldson, who heads the Jamaica Labour Party-dominated Council, said drain-cleaning would be a major focus of the new clean-up drive.

Commenting on the planned opening today of the leg of the North Coast Highway leading from the Sangster International Airport to the Jamaica Defence Force barracks at Flankers, he said he expected continued traffic delays despite new traffic measures that were proposed.

The city has suffered severe traffic congestion for weeks as contractors hurried to complete sections of the highway from the airport through to Trelawny, where the opening ceremony of the CWC and four warm-up matches are to be held at the recently completed Trelawny Multi-purpose Stadium.

But Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA) president Horace Peterkin expressed hope Thursday that the new measures would provide some reprieve from traffic congestion in the city.

“I hope the new measures help in easing the congestion,” he told the Sunday Observer, following a meeting between minister of transport and works Bobby Pickersgill and tourism and other business interests in the city.

The proposed new measures to take effect today will see an opening of the completed section of the road from the airport to Flankers, taking traffic eastwards out of the city and the existing Flankers main road taking traffic westwards into the city.

In addition, the Lilliput section of the highway is expected to be completed in time for the World Cup.