The creation of two new divisions in Portmore, St Catherine has resulted in thousands of residents unsure of where to conduct business with the local government authorities.

The boundary changes have resulted in Councillor Claude Hamilton (PNP, Portmore Pines Division) and Councillor Michael Edwards (PNP, Greater Portmore North Division) having to sit in the St Catherine Parish Council until the matter is resolved.

The changes were made by the Electoral Commission of Jamaica to accommodate the newly created East Central St Catherine constituency in time for last December’s general election.

Newly returned mayor of the Portmore Municipal Council George Lee said he is also still not sure where residents of the affected divisions will submit their plans, seek entertainment permits or apply for certain licences.

Lee, who had his first day in office yesterday, said the Portmore Municipal Council is also yet to determine what portion of its revenue could be lost to the St Catherine Parish Council until the problem has been resolved.

According to Lee, it is still not clear what jurisdiction, if any, Portmore retains over the two divisions or what portion of collected revenue such as property taxes from these residents should be handed over to the St Catherine Parish Council.

Answers, he said, are also being sought as to whether the St Catherine Parish Council will have to pay for any work to be done in the divisions while the matter is being addressed.

“It is a very untidy situation and some of the questions you are asking are not even properly defined, and indeed I will take steps over the next couple of days to find out what it all means,” Lee told the Jamaica Observer.

According to Lee, the matter of resolving the boundary changes is now with Attorney General Patrick Atkinson awaiting his advice.

Until a decision has been made, Lee said he will be instructing the council’s secretary manager to seek legal advice on what should be paid over to Spanish Town and what jurisdiction Portmore retains.

“It is all still up in the air, but all I can say is it’s a very untidy situation which we hope will be cleared up very quickly,” Lee said.

Yesterday, member of parliament (MP) for East Central St Catherine Arnaldo Brown said until the matter is resolved, building approval applications for which the municipality would have responsibility in the past will now have to be directed to the already swamped St Catherine Parish Council.

“These residents physically live in the municipality, but places like West Cumberland, sections of Independence City, Caymanas Gardens, Cedar Grove, Silver Stone, Portmore Pines, although within the boundaries of the municipality, they would suffer the inconvenience of having to seek such approvals from the St Catherine Parish Council,” he told the Observer.

This, he said, is bearing in mind that the St Catherine Parish Council has responsibility for all other divisions throughout the parish, except those in Portmore.

“Therefore, the strain on the St Catherine Parish Council would create logistical and time problems for the approval of applications for building, and that is just one of the issues that would arise,” he added.

Issues relating to licences for barber shops, bars and entertainment permits, according to Brown, would also have to be referred to the St Catherine Parish Council.

As such, the first-term MP said he is anxious for the matter to be resolved in the shortest possible time.

“We can’t escape that it has been a little bit untidy because it should have been a smooth transition, so there really should have been a parallel track taking place so that once general (elections) was out of the way these amendments should have taken place according to proper procedure, so that there would have been a seamless transfer from Spanish Town to Portmore,” he said.

While not committing to any timeline for the issue to be resolved, Brown said it was his opinion that it could take up to three months.

According to Brown, the boundary issues were not resolved before because there were deferring opinions as to the procedures to follow.

Based on these differing views, Brown said the procedure which was adopted turned out to be incorrect.

As to what caused this dilemma in the first place, Brown said the Portmore Pines Division, as it is now configured, never existed but was previously the Bernard Lodge Division, while Greater Portmore North was never a part of the municipality before now.