LETTER OF THE DAY - Put our nation first, not money
Published:Wednesday | March 27, 2013 | 12:00 AM
THE EDITOR, Sir:
Being a diehard Jamaican who works too much, has family responsibilities up to my neck and whose salary is decreasing in value by the minute, I rarely have the opportunity to visit the various parishes or the sites boasted about to tourists.
However, recently, because of a death in the family, I was able to make one of such rare trips into Montego Bay.
Upon entering Montego Bay, as with these long trips, pit stops are many, which brings me to my issue of concern. I stopped by a gas station to use its facilities, which are not where my contention lies. Upon my exit of the restroom at the rear of the facility, I realised that the station is located on the shoreside of the highway. You can imagine my surprise when I heard waves splashing up just about 10 feet from the doors of the restrooms.
With the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) responsible for the protection of Jamaica's natural resources, it begs the question, how are such permits granted, and on what grounds are they justified? How can we feel safe with such chemicals, sewage and God knows whatever else there is, and the dangers they pose, being mere feet away from the shores we aggressively market to tourists?
Successive governments only seem to react to issues which directly affect the tourism product. As such, a request is now being made of the regulatory bodies that govern our natural resources to live up to their mandates and be more aggressive in the monitoring of our natural resources to ensure that these breaches do not occur!
If this was allowed to happen, who knows how many others have slipped through the cracks, how many more such breaches are silently eroding our shores and destroying what natural resources we have left and still own?
The minister with responsibility for the environment, the Town Planning Department, the Natural Resource and Conservation Authority and the parish councils need to investigate the granting of such permits to ensure that these 'mishaps' do not take place.
It is time we start putting our nation first, for all that it is still worth, before money and personal gain and think about what we will leave for the generations to come. If we destroy what we have now, nothing is promised to them.
KEISHA GAYLE-WILLIAMS