Editorial | KSAMC too hard to fix?

The voice, this time, is Andrew Swaby, the chairman of the Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation (KSAMC), the city’s local government.

But it could have been an echo, the words and issue eerily familiar: regulators at the KSAMC fingered for failing to do their jobs and the boss ordering a review of protocols and procedures to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.

In this instance, under Mr Swaby’s leadership, the KSAMC said it has “already begun to identify reforms for implementation to strengthen its compliance processes”.

“As part of these efforts, the KSAMC is conducting a comprehensive review of its procedures to ensure thorough inspections at all stages of construction,” the local government body said. “This review includes implementing more detailed and consistent checks to detect deviations from approved plans earlier.”

The difference on this occasion is the corporation’s promise to bring in specialist outside advisers to help the KSAMC “adopt best practices and strengthen accountability measures”.

The cynics are likely to offer a disbelieving shrug. This newspaper is willing, for another time, to give the KSAMC the benefit of the doubt.

The local government body has responsibility for an area that is home for over 650,000 Jamaicans, or approximately a quarter of the island’s population. Like Jamaica’s other parish governments, it is the regulatory body for the issuance and policing of building permits within its jurisdiction, for which it coordinates with a swathe of planning and environmental agencies.

DOESN’T DO GOOD JOB

Like other municipal authorities, the KSAMC doesn’t do a good job, causing it, especially in recent times as citizens’ groups and official watchdogs have become more vigilant and vocal, to be called out for its failures.

The current issue involves a relatively small real estate development in a choice Kingston suburb by a company in which a business partner/colleague of Prime Minister Andrew Holness and the PM’s son are among the owners. Another political colleague of the prime minister is the company secretary.

The firm, Estatebridge Holdings, received planning permission to build four large two-bedroom townhomes. But in an investigation report tabled in Parliament recently, the Integrity Commission (IC) said that Estatebridge had converted the buildings to four-bedroom homes, ostensibly until they were caught.

According to the IC, when its technical investigators visited the construction site in July crews were observed demolishing internal concrete walls. And additional bathrooms had been built to accommodate the added bedrooms.

The company rejected those findings, arguing that walls were removed because a previous foreman had erred with respect to plumbing works, which were being corrected.

Regarding IC’s claim that Estatebridge’s operational leader had previously said under oath, during another investigation, the company said that all along the intention was to build four “habitable rooms” inclusive of two bedrooms.

The designer/contractor also denied having told IC’s investigators on the day of the July site inspection that what was being corrected was the construction of four bedrooms. He, too, insisted that his statement was about four “habitable rooms”.

REVIEW SYSTEMS

In the face of the IC’s report which recommended the KSAMC review its systems, including human capacity, as well as ensure that regulations in the law were adhered to, the KSAMC determined that internal construction didn’t follow the approved plans.

But in the absence of the additional bedrooms (which, by the ICs account may have been demolished, but according to Estatebridge were never there) these seem not as egregious. The developers have since applied for post-construction, “as-built” approval of the variance. How these applications are approved, so as to avoid abuse, is among the things that KSAMC says is under review.

What, however, is bothersome is the dearth of inspections that were conducted of the project – two in the early stages when concrete foundations were being poured and one after the IC’s report.

Here, too, are echoes of the late 2023 scandal when an IC investigation found that an apartment complex, developed by the president of the National Water Commission, was built with several more bedrooms than were allowed. KSAMC inspectors appeared not to have noticed. Breaches of environmental permits seemed also to have either been noticed, reported or acted on late by the National Environment and Planning Agency.

In 2021, it required a site visit by Supreme Court judge, Natalie Hart-Hines, not the work of KSAMC inspectors, to determine that a developer, who had a permit to construct 15 one-bedroom apartments had organised for 32 bedrooms in the apartments and attempted to hide the fact by not putting up the internal bedroom wall, although the bathrooms were built. Those walls would come later.

Justice Hart-Hines called the KSAMC dilatory. Other judges have also criticised the agency and its inspectors. Indeed, after one blistering critique of an inspector’s work by a judge, two KSAMC officials were placed on administrative leave.

Mr Swaby’s predecessor as the corporation’s chairman promised reviews and new, streamlined systems, with greater transparency.

It is not this newspaper’s sense that much has happened, or at least that the change was effective. Maybe this time.