By Claudia Gardner:
Mayor of Lucea and Chairman of the Hanover Municipal Corporation Sheridan Samuels says it has been smooth sailing for the parish where the allocation of monies from the Parochial Revenue Fund (PRF), is concerned.
The Mayor said that unlike the complaints he has heard emanating from other parishes, Hanover has been fortunate to be religiously getting its allocation in full and on time.
“I was interviewed about the Parochial Road Programme we have here in terms of PRF… I told the media person that it is by law that we have to get it… every month, and we don’t have a problem,” the mayor said during the Regular Monthly Meeting of the Hanover Municipal Corporation.
“So I am really satisfied with the distribution of the Parochial Revenue Fund, unlike other municipalities. I don’t know exactly… councilors (elsewhere) complaining about not receiving money, but we have received our PRF that we normally use to do that. And also we have distributed it and set aside a small amount that that councilors can use it to do remedial work in terms of cleaning a drain or two,” Samuels explained.
“But we are back to normal now and I can also announce to you that we have done an intensive mitigation programme for this period. The month of June is normally set aside for drain cleaning,” he added.
He added: “We have done programme that we are asking for some money from our Emergency Fund for all the divisions to get to clean drains, because you know we are in the hurricane season so that is sent off for approval…We are grateful for what we have received and also for the programme that was introduced to us.”
The monies from the Parochial Revenue Fund (PRF) are generated through the collection of property taxes and two-thirds of the funds from tax on motor vehicles.
It is a major source of funds for the island’s municipal corporations and is used for road maintenance and other infrastructural projects. Through the fund, each of the island’s municipal corporations receives 90 percent of the funds collected from property taxes in their respective municipalities.
In January this year, The Gleaner newspaper reported that Councillor Ian Miles of Westmoreland Municipal Corporation had complained that there was a “lack of equity” in how the Parochial Revenue Fund was being distributed as the corporation was not receiving an adequate and timely allocation from the Ministry of Local Government.
Myles, who is the councillor of the Little London division in the WMC, had said that Westmoreland councilors were being subjected to a protracted wait for the funding, rendering them unable to provide much-needed services to those the communities, unlike other parishes, for which it was “smooth sailing’.
The councilor had also said that up to three months would pass without any money being received from the PRF, even though Westmoreland residents were paying their property taxes.
According to him, there appeared to be a “direct intention to have Westmoreland pushed on the back burner”.
In March, two months after Myles’ complaints, chairman of the Association of Local Government Authorities of Jamaica (ALGAJ) Winston Maragh Maragh said that the overdue parochial funds were being disbursed and explained that the delay which had occurred, was “a result of restructuring ordered by Local Government Minister Desmond McKenzie”.
He said at the time that McKenzie had, based on a report, wanted the Municipalities to look at how better-quality roads could be constructed using a higher grade of barber green instead of “chip and spray”, and had asked for a restructuring of their PRF programmes as a consequence.
Maragh, who is also the Mayor of May Pen and Chairman of the Clarendon Municipal Corporation, had also said that Westmoreland’s issue was being addressed frontally.
