FOLLOWING the chaos that led to a premature termination of last Friday’s annual general meeting of the Association of Local Government Authorities of Jamaica (ALGAJ), Minister of Local Government Desmond McKenzie says he has initiated a meeting with its executive.

Police had to be called to Golf View Hotel to ease tensions after disruption over the agenda and how the meeting was to proceed.

During the ordeal, ALGAJ President Winston Maragh’s left hand was bruised after a microphone was forcefully taken from him, reportedly by a female councillor.

Addressing a post-Cabinet media briefing on Wednesday, McKenzie described the disruption of the meeting as “unprecedented and very disturbing”.

“Again, the behaviour of some councillors has brought local government into disrepute. I have written to the executive of ALGAJ inviting them to a meeting to state the position, because we cannot afford to allow an important institution as local government, which offers service to the people of Jamaica, to be brought into disrepute over the position of offices which are not being contested in a legal way,” McKenzie told the media briefing at Jamaica House.

When asked about a timeline for his intervention and the meeting with the executive McKenzie said he intends to clarify that so he can take further action.

“The decision on the meeting is vested in the executive of ALGAJ. I am expecting to meet with ALGAJ next week to discuss the issues. I think there has to be some cooling off period and what we are seeing happening is this fight for power and it is not serving the interest of local government,” he said.

“It might serve personal interests, but not the overall benefit of local government and I am expecting to make it quite clear, because people might not know that the Local Governance Act gives the minister of local government wide-ranging powers over the affairs — certain elements of local government — and if I am pushed to the limit, I will exercise those powers that are vested within the minister of local government,” added McKenzie, who did not indicate what actions he might take.

Maragh, a member of the ruling Jamaica Labour Party and former mayor of May Pen, last Friday accused members of the People’s National Party of stirring up trouble during the meeting — the first AGM since 2018 — when he decided to move to the election of officers on the agenda.

“However, our PNP members thought to themselves that they would have been outvoted at that time and so they decided to bring the meeting into chaos,” claimed Maragh.

“One of the councillors pulled the microphone from my hand and in the process of doing so, my hand was bruised and cut,” he told journalists.

Maragh also said he believed the councillor who grabbed the microphone was influenced to do so.

An aspirant for the presidency of the association, Councillor Scean Barnswell (People’s National Party, Hayes Division) accused Maragh of breaching ALGAJ’s constitution.

“The president moved for a suspension of the standing order to move straight into the election and we said, ‘President, you can’t move into an election before you deal with these important matters, which is your report, but more so the financial statement report’. In the ALGA constitution, class six under business of meeting, it states that at least 21 days prior to the date of a fixed AGM each authority shall be forwarded by the secretary, a resolution or letters as it relates to what should be on the agenda,” Barnswell told the media last Friday.