The Opposition People’s National Party (PNP) has accused Local Government Minister Desmond McKenzie of misleading the country and has called for him to provide proof that local authorities are allocated between $600 million and $700 million each month to carry out road repairs.

The party made the call during a press conference on Tuesday where several PNP mayors and minority leaders in municipal corporations challenged the claim by McKenzie.

Alarmed that the figure quoted by McKenzie could give the impression that each municipal corporation was given more than $600 million monthly, the PNP spokesperson on Local Government and Participatory Democracy Natalie Neita Garvey told the press conference that the sum was significantly less.

“The problem here is chronic underfunding accompanied by misleading political statements creating unrealistic public expectations,” asserted Neita Garvey, who is also Member of Parliament for St Catherine North Central.

She said the PNP believes local government should be strengthened, not weakened.

According to her maths, the average monthly figure is closer to $473 million which is shared between all 14 municipal corporations, including Portmore. The Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation (KSAMC), of which the PNP’s Andrew Swaby is mayor, is granted the largest share of around $85 million. The St Catherine Municipal Corporation of which the PNP’s Norman Scott is mayor, is allocated $60 million, while the Hanover Municipal Corporation which is headed by the PNP’s Sheridan Samuels, gets the smallest monthly allocation of $13 million.

“The Jamaican people deserve the truth about the state of local government and the resources available to the municipal corporations to maintain our roads and other critical municipal infrastructure,” Neita Garvey stated.

She insisted that the recent assertions by McKenzie that the corporations receive up to $700 million each month for road maintenance from property taxes “is just not true”.

McKenzie, while addressing the handover ceremony for grants under the Clean-Up and Restoration Initiative in St James in late June, said all municipal authorities receive a share of between $600 million and $700 million each month from the Ministry of Finance. The local government minister said the allocations were made based on the number of roads in each parish. Since then, a number of councillors have taken issue with the comment. During Tuesday’s press conference, the pushback continued.

“He has further berated councillors for saying they don’t have money to do this, and they don’t have money to do that, and suggesting that he is intending to ‘mash down di lie’. Today we intend to separate fact from fiction and reality from political talk aimed at an election agenda,” Neita Garvey declared.

She accused McKenzie of “using large figures to create the impression that municipal corporations are flush with cash”. She said when the allocated figures are examined the facts tell an entirely different story.

Having outlined the amount given to each local authority every month, the PNP spokesperson argued that the figures presented by the local government minister are inflated as they combine funding streams that are either restricted or simply unavailable for routine maintenance.

“This is not merely an accounting issue, this is political propaganda. It is also about presenting correct information to the people of Jamaica; it’s about accountability and credibility,” she said.

Neita Garvey lamented that councillors representing both the PNP and governing Jamaica Labour Party “have been broad-brushed as if they can do more because they are [supposedly] receiving adequate funds”.

She used the KSAMC as an example, highlighting that deductions are made from the $85-million monthly figure leaving only $13 million annually for each councillor to effect road repairs in their divisions. Comparing the cost of repairing one kilometre of road as prescribed by the National Works Agency (NWA) under the Shared Prosperity Through Accelerated Improvement to Our Road Network (SPARK) programme, the veteran MP noted that it would take a councillor four years to complete a single kilometre of road with side drains.

“That figure alone expresses the inadequacies of the allocations currently provided to municipal corporations. It is worsened by the fact that the municipal corporations are responsible for almost 20,000 kilometres of roads, more than twice that of the NWA,” she said.

Weighing in on the issue, Swaby told the press conference that with the KSAMC having responsibility for well in excess of 100 kilometres of roads the corporation faces a shortfall of $248 million each month to carry out repairs. Apart from funding issues, he said the KSAMC is facing a staffing shortage with only four officers to service all 40 divisions where 10 is ideal. He said the situation remains unresolved despite numerous representations to the Local Government Services Commission.

Swaby also shared that KSAMC has to be paying salaries from own source revenues each month following the public sector reclassification exercise that increased salaries.

When he addressed the press conference, Mayor of Savanna-la-Mar Danree Delancy lamented that the $24 million to $25 million allocated to the municipal corporation each month was woefully inadequate. He also highlighted that since Hurricane Melissa last October at least 60 people remain in shelters across the parish and that up to 40 per cent of homes in Eastern Westmoreland are still under tarpaulin.