The appointment of St James Members of Parliament Dr Horace Chang, Ed Bartlett and Clive Mullings to Prime Minister Bruce Golding’s Cabinet should be welcomed by the citizens of the parish in general, and Montego Bay in particular.

While it cannot be denied that the previous People’s National Party (PNP) administration spent a pretty penny in infrastructural development in St James, the truth is that more needs to be done to halt the raft of social and economic ills besetting the parish.

In fact, Montegonians in particular, have long argued that the lack of capital injection in basic infrastructural projects in the resort city and the inability to undertake the maintenance of existing projects on a timely basis have been preventing the city from delivering a world-class tourism product.

During the recent election campaign, representatives in St James from the two major political parties vowed to lobby government for portions of some tourism-related taxes to remain in the parish, if they were elected.

They argued that portions of the head taxes from the cruise ship passengers, as well as the departure taxes from the airline should go directly into developing communities in and around the resort area.

They maintained that the “ploughing back” of such taxes into Montego Bay would help to address some of the social and economic ills facing the resort city.

The candidates also agreed that agriculture, and the expansion of the IT and tourism sectors should be aggressively pursued, in an effort to create more jobs in the parish.

The high levels of crime and violence, unemployment, lack of housing solutions and the deplorable condition of roads and the informal settlements, therefore, must be given urgent attention by Messrs Chang, Bartlett and Mullings during their term in office.

After all, the trio, who served as MPs in constituencies in St James under the previous PNP administration, had consistently highlighted the myriad problems besetting the parish.

It was suggested on numerous occasions that the parish was being starved of funds by the then administration because three of the four MPs won their seats on the JLP ticket in the 2002 general elections.

Now that the JLP is in power and the parish ‘blessed’ with arguably three competent government ministers, parishioners are hopeful that the ills of the parish will soon begin to get some attention.

While the problems cannot be fixed overnight, the trio must, in short order, send a clear message to the people of St James that they are, in fact, serious about tackling the ills of the parish.

As such, I believe that the three Cabinet ministers in the parish must set a timetable and advise the residents accordingly on how they intend to proceed in addressing those ills.

So then, as we laud the prime minister in appointing three Cabinet ministers from the parish, let’s hope for enormous benefits. It is high time the needs of the parish were put on the front burner.