McKenzie ‘embarrassed’ work has not started on Negril Fruits and Vegetables Market

WESTERN BUREAU:

WORK HAS been started to facilitate the construction of Westmoreland’s Negril Fruits and Vegetables Market.

Desmond McKenzie, minister of local government and rural development, whose portfolio includes municipal markets, at a town hall meeting in that tourist resort in 2017, said that $75 million had been committed to build the market.

Six years later, ground is yet to be broken at the facility.

Bertel Moore, the embattled chairman of the Westmoreland Municipal Corporation and mayor of Savanna-la-Mar, informed The Gleaner on Tuesday that a temporary facility to relocate the approximately 25 vendors from the market is being developed, and that they could occupy it as soon as next month.

“There is construction going on; we are installing the sanitary convenience as we speak. We fenced it and are now working on finishing it,” Moore said.

“We expect to have those preliminary works completed within the next two weeks, and then the vendors can be relocated so that work on the Fruits and Vegetables Market can begin,” Moore remarked.

Clearly dissatisfied with the slow pace at which the project is advancing, McKenzie stated that the plethora of reasons and delays have left him ashamed, and that his reputation, as well as that of the Andrew Holness-led Government, is being called into question in respect of their pledge to build the market.

“I must confess to you that I am embarrassed. I spoke about building the market at my first town hall meeting in Negril in 2017,” McKenzie said.

“I intend to write to the mayor because I believe the credibility of the Government, and particularly my credibility as the minister, is being called into question,” he said.

McKenzie further noted that building the facility was not a matter of funding because the Government has the funds.

“What I have been getting is a bag of excuses coming out of the Westmoreland Municipal Corporation,” McKenzie noted, listing soil quality and land.

“Once they were having difficulty in the soil testing, and the Negril Chamber of Commerce provided the funds for that. Then they spoke about the location to relocate the vendors and we got the Prime Minister’s Office to give permission for the adjacent property, which is owned by the commissioner of lands, to be used,” a frustrated McKenzie explained.

The local government minister told The Gleaner that more than $9 million has already been spent to create the temporary facility for the merchants, and the people are still waiting for the market.

“And I want to make it clear to the public that it is the Westmoreland Municipal Corporation that has stalled the project. We had budgeted $75 million at the time, and I know it will cost a little more now,” he continued.

Drawings for the new multimillion dollar market have been completed and approved by the WMC and were sent to the various approval agencies, including the National Environment and Planning Agency, National Works Agency and the Jamaica Fire Brigade, which will make recommendations ahead of the final stage of planning.

albert.ferguson@gleanerjm.com