MONTEGO BAY, St James – SOCIAL activist O Dave Allen has renewed his call for the Jamaica Railway Corporation (JRC) and the St James Municipal Corporation (SJMC) to address issues that he says are plaguing the commercial operators plying their trade at the People’s Arcade in Montego Bay.

Allen charged that business owners in the arcade are being forced to work under less than desirable conditions due to mismanagement of the facility.

He further told the Jamaica Observer West that he places the blame for these poor conditions at the feet of both government organisations because they have “abandoned the needs of the marginalised sector”.

“The water supply has been cut off for over three years so we are currently without [running] water, so now we have sanitary problems here,” said Allen, who operates a recording studio inside the arcade.

This, he said, is due to the failure of the administrators of the SJMC to carry out their duties in regard to maintaining the water supply at the facility, which has over 400 small commercial units.

“The water supply is in the name of the St James Municipal Corporation because it was the parish council who put us over here in the first instance. They gave us the water so we did not have any sort of individual meter for water,” Allen told the Observer West.

Pointing out that the People’s Arcade was established in 1996 by former mayor of Montego Bay, the late Arthur Gilchrist, as a means of regularising street vending, Allen stated that the municipal corporation “has a clear responsibility to give support to the marginalised sector”.

“This is the sector that built Norwood, Rose Heights and other informal communities. It is these women in particular, working inside of the People’s Arcade, who built these informal communities from their informal earnings,” Allen maintained.

“It is time for us to formalise the informal economy. We need an overarching policy to do this but specifically, I think the local authority, the municipality need to create space for this marginalised sector. We need to preserve some places in Montego Bay for locals,” he added.

Hugh Morrison, a furniture maker at the facility, told the Observer West that he along with the other craftsmen plying their trade in the arcade are in desperate need of assistance.

“We think the arcade has a bright future and we have been fighting with it, but we aren’t getting any assistance. It is a nice little place right in the town; it is easily accessible and we have space,” said Morrison.

“We have to use the [transport centre] or the gas station’s bathroom yet we have about four restrooms in the arcade. But, they took the water away from us,” he complained.

“We used to facilitate woodwork students from the Anchovy and Muschett high schools but because we don’t have any water, we had to stop. We can’t carry a youth here and then they can’t wash off to take public transport afterwards.”

The electricity in the facility is also a sore point, the craftsman shared.

“We have about 20 papers that JPS said we should [fill out] to get light and we are still not getting any light,” he lamented.

With the land which houses the arcade being owned by JRC, Allen disclosed that he believes the existing conditions are deliberately in order to frustrate the operators of the commercial buildings.

“We had individual meters for electricity and I used to write letters authorising the Jamaica Public Service (JPS) to give access to individuals who own shops here. But, that right was taken away from me,” Allen told the Observer West.

“What happened is that the railway corporation refused to give them electricity. This is like a slow poison to kill the arcade because we were not a part of the railway business plan,” he insisted.

“We have also applied to the railway corporation to become a tenant of theirs and they won’t give us the go-ahead,” Morrison chimed in.

But CEO of the JRC, Donald Harrison told the Observer West that they are working to “regularise” these business operators.

“I think in the next two months we might be able to do something because we got instructions from the board that we must try our best to regularise them,” said Morrison.

“What happened is that those people were put there by the parish council some long time ago, so those people who are there do not have any status with the railway corporation — they are just there.”

Harrison stated that though there have been efforts to assist these business operators, the JRC has been unsuccessful in doing so due to a lack of participation.

“We have not been able to regularise them. Over the years we have tried without success and that is why they cannot get any water or electricity, because they do not have any legal status with the corporation,” Morrison explained.

“We gave most of them application forms to fill up but we just got back about 10 when there are like 500 shops over there, so that is why we didn’t make a move at the time,” the CEO added.

Until these business operators are regularised, Morrison said, obtaining letters to take to JPS is impossible.

“We would have to give them letters stating that they are our tenants, which they are really not,” he stressed.

And responding to Allen’s appeal for a beautification project to be undertaken at the facility, Harrison told the Observer West that the business operators will have to foot that bill.

“That would have to be their expenditure because the railway corporation really doesn’t have any money like that. We are not running trains, we are just living off the Track User Agreement with the bauxite company, plus we have some tenants that pay us. Railway does not have that money to fix up the People’s Arcade,” Harrison shared.