By dint of hard work, Local Government Minister Mr Desmond McKenzie has built an unquestioned reputation for his commitment to local governance in this country.

We suspect that Mr McKenzie, who served many years as councillor for the Denham Town Division in the Kingston and St Andrew municipality, and as mayor of Kingston, is now more than a little embarrassed.

We feel for the local government minister who, we suspect, will have the responsibility of returning to Parliament to request more time for the holding of the long-delayed local government elections, having already done so twice since late 2020.

Readers will recall that in January last year the Jamaican Parliament voted to temporarily modify the Representation of the People (Postponement of Elections to Municipal Corporations and City Municipalities) Act to allow for local government elections to be postponed for a further 12 months and held no later than February 28, 2023.

Elections by that date, in just over a week’s time, are now impossible.

Readers will also recall that the local government poll was previously delayed from November 2020 largely because of the COVID-19 pandemic. This was although, two months earlier, in September 2020, parliamentary elections were held despite the pandemic and related disaster risk management restrictions.

In January 2022 Mr McKenzie again cited public health risk from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and other issues such as the disruption of face-to-face school.

Inevitably, critics noted that by then COVID-19 restrictions under the Disaster Risk Management Act were being relaxed. And, further, that parliamentary elections two years earlier were held at the height of the restrictions.

Mr McKenzie told fellow legislators in January 2022 that: “We [Government] are still committed to having the next local government elections in the shortest practicable time…”

Outside of raw political party considerations we are at a loss as to why the “shortest practicable time” should have extended beyond the period allotted in January 2022.

Now we are hearing that no funds have been specifically allotted for local government elections in the financial year 2023/24.

We recognise, of course, that this, by itself, does not preclude the local polls being held soon.

We are at one with a growing number of individuals and groups, including the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica and the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce, that Prime Minister Andrew Holness should urgently send Jamaicans to the local government polls.

Talk that there is precedence for the current delay has no standing in our view. Accumulated wrongs cannot make a right.

As has been said repeatedly, efficient local governance and, ultimately, the sacred right of citizens to elected representation are being infringed. In some divisions councillors have died. Also, some councillors, for one reason or another, no longer function at optimum.

It is becoming increasingly obvious, as was pointed out in this space on February 1, that in defence of our democracy, the country needs to arrive at a fixed election date, also as a matter of priority.

As the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce said recently: “Our citizenry deserves a system which best serves them and not one that serves whichever party holds the reins of power.”