FALMOUTH, Trelawny – In a dramatic about-face, mayor of Falmouth Jonathan Bartley yesterday approved a fee waiver for the local organisers of Cricket World Cup 2007 to erect 100 banners along the route from Falmouth to the Trelawny Multi-purpose Stadium.

“I spoke to someone from the LOC (Local Organising Committee) this morning and I told her that we will grant them the waiver,” Mayor Bartley said.

Consequently the banners, which the local organisers said they were unable to put up without the waiver, will start going up today, just two days ahead of the tournament’s opening ceremony at the stadium.

“We will be dressing up the town with 100 street banners from the entrance leading into the stadium and from the Starfish hotel into that direction,” the LOC’s communication manager Pauline Nelson told the Observer last night.

Yesterday, the Observer reported that the organisers were unable to erect the banners as they had not received the waiver, which Bartley was reluctant to grant in the face of a perceived slight on the part of the local organisers in not giving complimentary tickets to parish council officers.

However, last night Bartley said the issue had been taken out of context, as the local authority was not in possession of a written application from the LOC for the granting of the waiver, despite claims from the organisers that they had submitted one.

“I was taken out of context, I was just explaining to the reporter that there were persons on the roads with free tickets and we at the council who worked very hard did not get any,” he said.

He argued that the LOC was trying to use the council as a scapegoat because it was embarrassed by the fact that with just three days to go before the official opening ceremony, the banners were not yet erected.

“We did not get any application for any waiver,” Bartley insisted. “The fact of the matter is that they are late (in putting up the banners) so they are trying to use the council as some form of scapegoat.”

He added that if the application had been received, the council would not have hesitated in granting the waiver.

“.We would not have any problem in granting the waiver, we have given them a reduction in the building fees of the stadium; we give waiver on the hospital, we give waiver on the police station,” Bartley said.