The minority members of the Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation (KSAMC) resigned from the Building and Planning Committee because they were fearful they could become targets after voicing their opposition to various building applications.

The stunning claim was made Thursday night by the People’s National Party (PNP) councillor-candidate for the Maxfield Division in the KSAMC, Dennis Gordon, during the first of two televised debates between the PNP and the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) ahead of the February 26 local government election to be held February 26.

His bombshell comments were made in the midst of a mostly contentious debate where both sides of three debaters each sought to paint the other side as more corrupt.

Gordon was responding to a round-about question about the PNP criticising the KSAMC’s building approval processes and decisions, given recent controversial developments across the Corporate Area. He was reminded by the questioner that in January 2022, the PNP councillors resigned from the Building and Planning Committee because of what they described as its “lack if integrity, transparency and ethicacy”.

They were asked “How do we take the Opposition seriously in its criticisms when PNP councillors have been refusing to do their jobs to provide oversight on this important committee?”

In his response, Gordon admitted that he was the first member of the PNP to resign from the committee. He shared that immediately after a building meeting he got a call “to announce to me that I’m blocking a development.

“Similarly, a colleague of mine on the other [JLP] side got a similar call and had to get security”.

Continuing, Gordon said “I’m not going to put my life at stake for rapacious and dishonest staff members who would’ve seen it necessary to alert the developer that we had questions about his or her approval”.

He insisted that the PNP is “pro-development. And we will support developers but will not be placed in the pockets of any developer, it is not about at all cost, it’s about doing what is right, with principle and we will stick by that”.

Gordon said that since the PNP members removed themselves from the committee there has been multiple lawsuits against the KSAMC and the corporation has launched an investigation after its building officers were cited in a damning report from the Integrity Commission in relation to a controversial development.

“I’ve never heard that in my life,” Gordon remarked.

The councillor-candidate said the PNP members were prepared to live with the criticism of reneging on their responsibilities but pushed back stating that “Until the state can provide sufficient security for us to do our job, I’m taking the way of preserving myself and my family and not to expose myself to rapacious and cruel developers”.

The party’s spokesperson on local government, Natalie Neita-Garvey who also participated in the debate highlighted that in 2019 local and international partners came together to formulate the building codes that led to the new Building Act.

However, she lamented that “until today no regulations have been put in place and so they are toothless. No enforcement [action] can be taken because you have not laid those regulations [in the Parliament]”.