NEGRIL, Westmoreland — Opposition spokesman on national security Senator Peter Bunting has blasted Local Government and Rural Development Minister Desmond McKenzie for suggesting that some Jamaicans are nasty.

Bunting’s broadside came in response to McKenzie’s sectoral debate presentation last month in which the minister warned Jamaicans who are not disposing of their garbage properly that they will not be allowed to stick up the Government because of nastiness.

McKenzie had scolded Jamaicans who, he said, were accusing the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA) of not doing a good job collecting garbage.

“If this Government provides a garbage truck for every community in Jamaica, it will not change. The minds of the people will have to change first,” McKenzie said.

“You are not going to stick up this Government because of nastiness… This Government has done everything in its power to provide trucks … As a country, we need to have some civic pride,” McKenzie added.

However, on Saturday Bunting, in an address to a People’s National Party (PNP) divisional conference in Negril, said that people are packaging their garbage and placing it in bins but it remains there for up to two months because of the failure of the NSWMA to collect it.

“When dog and rat and puss and everything scatter it out, Desmond doesn’t take responsibility that him don’t collect the garbage, him cuss the people seh dem nasty,” Bunting said. “This is the kind of arrogance that we must get rid of in this country.”

He added: “When the people under pressure and the Government doesn’t perform, instead of coming to the people with humility and apologise, they come with a piece of arrogance.

“So, the garbage is not being collected. I don’t know if you are getting your garbage collected in the Negril division,” Bunting said, eliciting a response of “No” from the PNP supporters.

Bunting’s criticisms were supported by Savanna-la-Mar Mayor Councillor Bertel Moore (PNP, Negril Division) who said the lack of garbage collection in the resort town of Negril is a “total disgrace”.

“Everywhere you go, garbage is piling up every single place, and every day you hear the minister come out and said he is getting new garbage trucks,” said Moore, who noted that during the tenure of the PNP in Government, trucks would be rented whenever there was a shortage of compactors.

The conference was also used to hand over the baton from Mayor Moore, who will be retiring from politics when the next local government election is called, to the caretaker for the division Arthel Colley.

Colley is a retired superintendent of police and the immediate past officer in charge of the Hanover police division who will be going up against Owen James of the Jamaica Labour Party.

Moore said that over the years he has beaten the James family and this time around Colley will do the same.

“I have beaten the father, I have beaten the grandfather, and when it comes to the James family, I beat them all the time. So, when I stand up beside Comrade Colley, whichever James comes, we going beat them again,” Moore declared.

Meanwhile, pointing to the soaring cost of living, Bunting argued that the PNP has always put the people first and suggested that the party should be prepared to show leadership when the people start protesting.

“Comrades, the time is going to come when they are not going to take the pressure any more. They are not going to take the pressure sitting down. The time is going to come when the people will want to take to the road to show their dissatisfaction with this wicked Government, to show their dissatisfaction with the soaring cost of living and the prices that are moving beyond their control. It is at that time that we need to show leadership for that movement of the people,” Bunting said.