LITTLE LONDON, Westmoreland — Chairman of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) local government campaign team Desmond McKenzie is urging voters in Westmoreland to see the looming polls as a chance to redeem themselves after more than 30 years of what he says was displaced loyalty to a political party that did little for them.

Westmoreland has historically voted for the People’s National Party (PNP) and according to McKenzie, the February 26 Local Government Election is a chance for the residents of the parish to send a message to that party.

“The people of Westmoreland must understand and appreciate that the PNP doesn’t value you as people. They only think about you as votes and they don’t have anything to offer to you. I am saying to you tonight that whatever mistakes were made 30-odd years ago, you have a chance to redeem yourself. Nobody should look at you and say this is a PNP parish. So, because this is a PNP place, they are not supposed to do anything for you?” argued McKenzie.

He was addressing Labourites in Little London Square, the final stop of a campaign tour of the parish on Tuesday.

PNP President Mark Golding was also campaigning in the parish that day; he told Comrades that the party regrets past errors that had cost it to lose all three seats in Westmoreland in the 2020 General Election.

The 2020 results came as a surprise for some. But the writing was on the wall from 2016 when the JLP took five divisions to the PNP’s nine in the local polls, up from no divisions held by Labourites after the 2012 vote. The JLP got a further boost when councillors for the Little London and Sheffield divisions, Ian Myles and Garfield James, respectively, crossed the floor last September.

In addressing a throng of green-clad supporters in Little London on Tuesday, McKenzie hammered home his assertion that the PNP has done nothing for them.

“Ask yourself the question: after so many years of being loyal to the PNP — take the politics out of it and let us be real — I want you to point to one thing that has been done in Westmoreland after 30-odd years of the PNP Administration. They consider you as not having any sense, that you are loyal to them and that is why they treat the people of Westmoreland in the way,” he railed.

McKenzie chided some Labourites who he said have fallen victim to PNP propaganda.

“I was travelling on a road today and this woman came out of her yard clenching her fist with her phone in her hand. I can bet she is on
TikTok. And she said, ‘Mi waan wata. Mi waan road Missa Desmond. Wata an road!’ And I said to her, ‘You should be ashamed!’” relayed McKenzie.

“She never asked for water and roads 30-odd years ago. She sat and lived in poor condition…We are the Government now. We have the MPs, between the three MPs since 2020, they have repaired and fixed more roads than what has been done under [the PNP] in the last 32 years,” he added.

To support his argument of work done by the JLP, he pointed to $46 million spent on road rehabilitation with drains and proper systems put in place in Lennox Bigwoods. He contrasted that to what he believes has been a dismal performance by the last PNP-led Westmoreland Municipal Corporation (WMC).

McKenzie went back to issues he has raised during the past administration, such as the six years it took the WMC to build a male ward at the parish infirmary after his ministry allocated $246 million in 2017.

“Westmoreland was the first parish to get the benefit. You know when they finish the ward? Last year when I brought the prime minister to open it,” stated McKenzie. “They do everything to sabotage the work of the Government in Westmoreland because if we do well, we show them up.”

He also maintained that $19 million was provided to renovate the Savanna-la-Mar Market, part of a wider effort to curb street vending, but the WMC had dropped the ball.

“They knew that I was coming [in January], so they served the notices to the vendors and told them that it was me who said that they must be given the notices. But, the people in Westmoreland must know that the track record of the Westmoreland Municipal Corporation under Bertel Moore and the PNP is to give away the market them,” the minister claimed, alluding to issues at facilities in Whitehouse, Little London and Grange Hill.

He also referenced pushback received from the corporation during attempts to establish a fruit and vegetable market for Negril. The Government announced the project in 2017, he said, and work has still not begun.

“We got the drawings. The estimate was done. The Ministry of Local Government provided the $75 million and we said to the municipal corporation, your job is now to get the plans. They said they don’t have any drawings. We said, ‘OK, we will deal with the drawings’. Drawings were done.

“We said to them, relocate the vendors to another location and they said the land to relocate the vendors belongs to the Ministry of Housing and they need permission. I got the minister of housing, who is the prime minister, to grant permission. I provided over $10 million to the Westmoreland Municipal Corporation to prepare the temporary location for the market and I don’t hear anything happening.

“They say they can’t do anything because they have to test the soil and to do the test, it costs $1 million and we don’t have the $1 million. The Negril Chamber of Commerce provided the money for the soil testing to build the Negril market, give it to the municipality and what did they do? They held it and did nothing about it. I had to go down there and cuss. It is after two years that they paid water commission the money to connect the sewage line to the temporary market,” McKenzie chronicled.