JAMAICA Labour Party (JLP) mayoral candidate for Portmore, Keith Blake is insisting that the municipal council cut ties with the St Catherine Parish Council so that tax dollars collected from Portmore residents are spent only within the municipality.

“It will be tremendously beneficial for the residents of Portmore. One area of it is that we would collect all the taxes to ensure that the services are given to the residents of Portmore,” he told the Jamaica Observer during last Friday’s nomination day exercise ahead of the November 28 Local Government Elections.

Blake, the only JLP member to secure a division for the party in the last parish council elections in the municipality, said that is the only reason that the party is pushing a Bill to separate the two.

The Bill – An Act to Amend the Local Governance Act – seeks to prevent councillors from sitting in more than one city/town municipality in a parish. This would immediately affect the relationship between councillors in the Portmore municipality and the wider St Catherine Parish Council, as only Portmore has a municipal system which allows voters to directly elect their mayor.

There are 41 divisions within the St Catherine Parish Council, with Portmore accounting for 12. The other 29 divisions are split 15-14 in favour of the JLP. The Government had banked on having the Bill tabled and debated last Tuesday, but faced strong opposition from the People’s National Party (PNP).

“It is unfortunate that it has not gone through as yet. As a matter of fact, let me recollect that George Lee was fighting for this and that is why Portmore got to where it’s at right now,” Blake said.

Lee, a member of the PNP, was the first elected mayor of Portmore. He died in September 2013.

“Then we wanted to ensure that we have autonomy for Portmore and Portmore residents going forward, looking about the businesses of Portmore, and that is why we were fighting for it back then,” Blake argued. “And to date, the party has seen it fit to deal with it now, even though it’s near elections, but Portmore residents need that.”

Against a wider belief, he insisted that the JLP is not politicking, but is instead seeking to do as much as it can within its term.

“Look at it this way, the party is just eight months in Government and there’s a number of areas the party is dealing with and so the elections have [been] called and so they have seen it fit to do so. Whether it be then or now, it has to be done,” he said.

The former Independence City councillor described the current arrangement under the law as “a problem”.

“We can’t do anything without the law being changed. This is something that the residents of Portmore really need — the autonomy for Portmore residents,” he said.

However, PNP St Catherine Southern Member of Parliament Fitz Jackson described the move as an attempt to destroy the foundation that has been laid by the residents of Portmore.

“[It] is a signal of their lack of commitment to honour the will of the Portmore people, and I think the voters will demonstrate that. One critical element of the Portmore Municipality Act is [that] all electoral matters to deal with Portmore must be presented to the residents for consultations and their input. The Jamaica Labour Party Government sought to breach that undertaking that the leaders gave and that was codified in the law that requires at least seven per cent of the voters in the affected areas to consent to any change,” Jackson told the

Observer.