KINGSTON, Jamaica — Opposition spokesman on Local Government, Desmond McKenzie, has condemned what he describes as a breakdown in governance and accountability in the local government system, following a report by the Office of the Contractor General (OCG) impugning the stewardship of the Hanover and St Thomas Parish councils.

McKenzie said that while the OCG’s findings have brought both the St Thomas and Hanover Parish Councils into disrepute, the allegations of nepotism, corruption and maladministration involving former Lucea Mayor Shernette Haughton are particularly disturbing and offensive to the Jamaican people.

“Mrs Haughton’s reported conduct flies in the face of good governance and represents a glaring breach of public trust. The barefaced alleged awarding of contracts to her family and friends is testament to the systemic breakdown in the administration and overall leadership of the local government system since the People’s National Party has been presiding over it,” McKenzie said.

He said incidents of alleged impropriety in People’s National Party-led parish councils have become far too frequent and that nothing but prompt, decisive and definitive action should be coming from the Government at this time.

McKenzie insisted: “If something is not done immediately to halt the decline in local government and enhance corporate governance skills and practices of local government administrators and practitioners, the PNP administration will cause the complete loss of confidence in local government by the population.”

He said the Opposition would not sit idly by and allow this to happen as the country had come too far to lose this important feature of our democracy, and that self-serving and misguided persons seeking only to enrich themselves at the expense of the tax-paying public must be rooted out of the system if confidence is to be restored.