MANDEVILLE, Manchester — Just under four years since the closure of bauxite/alumina plants Alpart in south eastern St Elizabeth and Kirkvine in central Manchester, economic gloom hangs heavy with unemployment on the rise and savings of ex-bauxite workers already spent or fast running out.

There was a spark of hope late last month with word from Mining Minister Phillip Paulwell that he expected to name a date for the reopening of Alpart — the largest of Jamaica’s alumina plants — by year-end.

“I have said to them (UC Rusal — owners of Alpart) that before this year is out, we are going to have to come and tell the people of St Elizabeth the date and schedule for the reopening,” Paulwell was quoted as saying by the Government’s information arm, JIS.

When the Observer Central sought an update last Friday, Paulwell could not be reached for comment, but a ministry official said the timeline for the minister’s announcement had been pushed back to mid-January.

“The discussions are continuing and they are very productive but they are at a delicate stage… we expect that by the middle of next month (January) we should have something definitive to say,” the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said.

Residents of bauxite mining areas in Manchester and St Elizabeth have seen such promises come to nothing over the past three years, and even while they hope for the best, won’t be holding their breath.

However, Len Blake, a former member of parliament for SE St Elizabeth who heads the Alpart Community Council, says the need for resurgence in the bauxite sector is now dire.

“Alpart closed nearly four years now and things have been very rough for the citizens, especially those that used to work there,” Blake, who is a farmer and businessman, told the Observer Central at his base in Lititz, on the border of South Manchester and South East St Elizabeth, last Thursday.

“By now, most people (former workers) are at best at the point of finishing their savings and are getting pretty nervous. One would have believed that the plant would have reopened by now,” he said.

While there has been talk of a reopening at Alpart in Nain, St Elizabeth, the Government has been mostly silent about the Windalco Kirkvine plant at Content, close to Williamsfield in Central Manchester. Kirkvine is also owned by the Russian aluminium giant UC Rusal and, like Alpart, was closed in early 2009.

Close to 1,000 people lost their jobs at Alpart and hundreds more at Kirkvine. The Windalco plant in Ewarton, St Catherine — owned as well by UC Rusal — was also closed in 2009 but reopened the following year, triggering vain hope at the time of a quick recovery in the alumina sector.

The collapse of the bauxite sector in St Elizabeth and Manchester triggered a huge cut in foreign exchange earnings, fast-tracking Jamaica’s return to the multilateral lender, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), for a borrowing relationship.

The global financial crisis and concerns about the notoriously energy-inefficient Jamaican plants triggered the collapse in 2009. Government spokesmen now say the persisting global economic downturn and the high cost of energy remain tough hurdles as the Government continues to negotiate with UC Rusal.

When the Observer Central made a quick photo tour of communities surrounding the mothballed alumina plants in Manchester and St Elizabeth last week, there was a general sense of despair among ordinary people and small business operators.

Wendy Harrison, who operates a bar at Content close to the entrance of the Kirkvine plant, told how she has had to “let go” her bartender because business had dipped to such a degree. “The money I used to pay her is now the same money I have to use to pay rent, light bill and buy stock,” she said ruefully.

Back in the good days, prior to early 2009, “if seven man come into the bar after work finish at the plant, the seven of them buy one round”, she said. Now, she can “barely make ends meet”. Referring to a slow Christmas season, Harrison said laughingly: “Mi did want dem fi suspend Christmas.”

At the Better Taste Bakery in Williamsfield, owner Carlene Ellis had a similar story. “Things have slowed all the way down,” she said. “We used to operate a little restaurant in addition to the bakery and we had to close that down.”

In Mandeville, Milton Malcolm, an Alpart worker of 20 years who invested from his redundancy package in a clothes retail business in partnership with his wife, had more encouraging news. He says he is managing to keep his head above water.

“So far, I am not complaining; some days slow, some days, not so bad,” Malcolm told the Observer Central at his Mally’s Allure store in Leader’s plaza.

At Nain, close to the mothballed Alpart plant, the Observer Central found business partners and ex-bauxite workers Winston Williams and Wayne Thomas inspecting an old, broken-down truck.

Williams explained that he had been previously involved in the trucking business but that had fallen on hard times, especially because of the cost of maintaining an aging vehicle. The plan now was to scrap the truck as a preamble to starting a used auto parts business.

A philosophical Williams argued that while things had not gone as planned for himself and many of his former colleagues, “we should be wiser with this experience because with adversity cometh strength”.

Thomas claimed the economic downturn since the closure of Alpart had fuelled crime in the community. “We getting a lot of burglaries, break-ins,” he said. As an outgrowth of the criminal activity, a neighbourhood watch was recently launched, he said.

Both men noted that some of their colleagues had turned to farming with disastrous consequences for many because of “over-production”, an absence of markets, and drought.

It was a point underlined by Blake. “Farming in these parts is very unpredictable,” he said. “Sometimes you go into it and you lose your money; some people are lucky and make some money; some people are not so lucky. We are in a drought-stricken area and it’s not easy.”

However, one ex-Alpart worker in the Junction area who declined to be identified told the Observer Central that his decision to invest much of his redundancy package in farming had worked out well.

He conceded that a background in farming going back to childhood as well as a degree in management studies helped him along.

Having “studied, researched and planned carefully” he first found a market for his produce, then concentrated on planting cucumbers and table tomatoes. He also found a way to truck water to his farm at the cheapest possible cost.

“As it is now, I am paying my bills and I am living okay,” he told the Observer Central.