FALMOUTH, Trelawny – Arguing that the performance of the Jamaica Labour Party Administration is substantial enough to win the upcoming parish council elections, Local Government Minister Desmond McKenzie yesterday brushed aside accusations from the Opposition People’s National Party (PNP) that funds are being withheld from the councils as a political ploy.

Pointing out that all the island’s parish councils are controlled by the PNP, McKenzie, in an address to the monthly meeting of the Trelawny Parish Council, said: “I want to make it quite clear, I have no intention… to withhold any funding from any parish council for any political purposes… I am going to say this: in the strength of our performance we can win parish councils without withholding funds from the parish councils. I am not playing any political game.”

The local government minister also rejected accusations from some quarters that recent audits of parish councils are politically motivated.

“It is never the wish of this minister or this Administration for an audit to be deemed political. It is in the best interest of the parish councils, and any organisation that has to deal with public funding and deal with the public, that all audits should be welcomed,” McKenzie said.

He argued that the audits are not only of a financial nature, but speak to the “overall operation, the management structure of the parish councils, and what needs to be done to strengthen parish councils”.

“I urge the councils to accept the fact that we cannot continue to operate in the same manner in which some of the councils have been operating,” McKenzie told the councillors. “We owe it to the people of Jamaica to be as transparent as we can, to be as credible as we can.”

McKenzie said that he wanted to put to rest comments made on a political platform by a senior PNP official that there seems to be an attempt to withhold funds from the parish councils. He pointed out that, next week, $29 million will be disbursed from the Equalisation Fund to the Trelawny Parish Council to purchase “three critical pieces of equipment” and for the furtherance of the parish’s drain-cleaning programme.

“While we know that local government elections are pending, it doesn’t mean that the work of the councils should be put on hold. People will vote for you based on your performance, and people have already made up their minds,” he said.