THE island’s parish councils are insisting that injunctions issued on real estate developers are legal and are done only as a last resort.

“Unless the minister would care to come forward with a particular case to show that we are acting without any reasonable basis in law, we have to take it (comments) with a grain of salt …and I really wouldn’t pay too much attention to it,” Montego Bay mayor, Noel Donaldson, told the Observer on Thursday.

Donaldson was responding to comments made by Information Minister Donald Buchanan in a statement to the media earlier this week. In the document, Buchanan warned parish councils to exercise caution when issuing stop orders on hotel developments.

“…I would caution them to be careful in how these are issued, as stop orders cost our investors millions, put people out of work and could negatively affect Jamaica’s reputation for being investor-friendly,” Buchanan said.

He was speaking against concerns raised by Spanish Ambassador Jesus Silva last week about the adverse effects of stop orders on the country and its investors.

But on Thursday Donaldson said that the minister’s comments “would presuppose that the councils do not act with caution and that we do things willy-nilly”.

“Where the St James Parish Council is concerned, we issue stop orders in the context of clear breaches of the law,” he maintained.

“At the local level we welcome investment, we crave investment so we don’t have any reason or any need to stifle (it). So for a minister to suggest anything else is ridiculous. If the minister is suggesting that foreigners ought to be exempt from the laws of Jamaica and from the councils enforcing them, then he needs to say so, but until such time we are going to enforce the law without fear or favour,” Mayor Donaldson maintained.

President of the Association of Local Government Authorities and mayor of May Pen, Milton Brown, backed his colleague, saying that the issuance of stop orders was the last step in a process which sought to reconcile the problems between the two groups.

“When we issue stop orders, not just for hotels, but also banks and other establishments, we issue them as a last resort. We would expect that the minister did his research and saw that where the orders have been issued lately, that there was communication from the councils to ask that the developers stick to the conditions but there was no response.”

Earlier this year the Spanish-owned Fiesta Hotel at Point Estate in Lucea, Hanover, was issued a stop order by the Hanover Parish Council after several breaches were detected. A similar order was placed on ClubHotel Riu at Mahoe Bay in Montego Bay by the St James Parish Council.

According to Brown, the stop orders were imposed because “the safety regulations laid down when permission to build was granted were being breached”.

“I can understand Minister Buchanan’s caution from where he sits, but we are expecting that the caution will be routine and not just because of investors.

“We are concerned about the safety of our workers and we are concerned for the integrity of the installation because these are what will be left with us even after the investors are gone,” Brown said.

Meanwhile, Mayor of Portmore George Lee also threw his weight behind his colleagues in declaring the need for stop orders.

“We don’t have some of these large hotels in Portmore but we must be guided by the concerns of the community. Councils have a responsibiltiy in law and in terms of the communities we represent to make certain that environmental and safety concerns are met,” he told the Observer.