KINGSTON, Jamaica — The Denham Town Primary School, founded by late former Prime Minister, Edward Seaga, is to be renamed in his honour.

Minister of Local Government and Community Development and Member of Parliament for West Kingston, Desmond McKenzie, made the announcement yesterday, at the launch of the Edward Seaga Scholarship Awards at the Spanish Court Hotel in New Kingston.

He said that the move is a part of initiatives being undertaken by residents of West Kingston to pay tribute to the man who served as their Member of Parliament for 43 years.

“We will also be erecting a monument in Mr Seaga’s honour in front of the Tivoli High School, which he founded and built on 15 acres of land, which was a part of the May Pen Cemetery. We are going to be erecting that monument as a lasting memory to Edward Seaga,” he said.

McKenzie noted, further, that St Aloysius Primary will be assisted in erecting two classrooms to be used for Spanish and music classes in Seaga’s honour.

“We are going to be having a memorial church service at the City Mission Church in a couple weeks’ time as our way of remembering our Member of Parliament,” he added.

McKenzie said that since Seaga’s passing, the constituency had been grappling with how to honour his memory.

“Edward Seaga was no ordinary man; he was a caring, loving, honest and decent man, someone whom we considered to be the best thing that happened to many of us in West Kingston,” McKenzie  said, noting that he was the first MP to introduce a programme that supported students’ back-to-school preparations.

The launch of the scholarship awards saw the presentation of seven scholarships to four university and three high-school students. A number of grants were also awarded to other students.

Seaga, who was the country’s fifth Prime Minister, serving from November 1980 to February 1989, passed away on May 28 on his 89th birthday.

He represented the constituency of West Kingston from 1962 until his retirement from active politics in 2005.

—JIS