Editorial | UDC and NRRA

As an early and aggressive promoter of clean-up brigades for debris left behind by Hurricane Melissa, this newspaper appreciates the Government’s recent accelerated effort to remove the huge mounds of garbage in badly hit areas.

Nonetheless, The Gleaner would welcome a fuller explanation of the basis for Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness’ assigning that job, with respect to the town of Black River, St Elizabeth, to the Urban Development Corporation (UDC), a move that seemingly implies bypassing the parish’s local government, as well as the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA). It also comes after the prime minister’s announcement last month of the allocation of J$10 million each to the members of parliament (MPs) of the 13 worst hurricane-affected constituencies, including four in St Elizabeth, as part of the clean-up project.

Further, now that the UDC has emerged from the woodworks, it would be useful for the Government to clarify if its Black River job is intended to be an initial foray, ahead of the agency’s involvement in the larger, longer-term recovery programme.

Should that be the intention, it must be made absolutely clear what role the UDC would have relative to the proposed National Reconstruction and Resilience Authority (NRRA), a special-purpose vehicle that Prime Minister Holness has promised will lead the rebuilding effort. Absence of clarity could lead to an overlap of obligations and responsibilities, the slow execution of projects, and the misallocation and waste of taxpayers’ resources. This project is too important for it not to be done right.

In that regard, The Gleaner reiterates its call that the legislation to establish the NRRA, and any regulations covering its operations, be published well ahead of passage by parliament, thereby allowing for public scrutiny and critique.

In other words, this law, and its accompanying scheme of arrangements, ought not to be subjected to a process that is too often the norm with important legislation: Parliament’s suspension of the rules, allowing bills to be rushed through the House, or the Senate – often on the same afternoon.

RETURN SENSE OF NORMALITY

When Melissa, a Category 5 hurricane, pummeled western Jamaica with 185mph winds on October 28, it killed at least 45 people and damaged or destroyed around 190,000 homes, as well as critical infrastructure. The overall cost of the damage was estimated at US$8.8 billion.

According to an analysis by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the hurricane left more than 4.8 million tonnes of debris. This is over four times the amount of solid waste the NSWMA normally collects in a year.

Initially, efforts at removal were not sufficiently robust, which was exacerbated by continued addition of more solid waste from households. So, over six weeks after the hurricane, in many towns and communities there are still large piles of debris, some of it at temporary holding areas.

It is in this context that The Gleaner proposed parish-based clean-up brigades, to help return a sense of normality to communities, reduce the circumstances for the spread of communicable diseases, and critically, put money in the pockets of some of the tens of thousands of people who lost their livelihoods. That was also part of the backdrop against which the Government launched the constituency clean-up project, involving parliamentarians and local government councillors.

However, this week, Prime Minister Holness announced that UDC (a statutory agency with the power to, among other things, “carry on any business or undertaking for the development of any designated area”) will have responsibility for cleaning up Black River, the St Elizabeth parish capital.

“That is to help the businesses and residents to remove debris generated from the hurricane and to relocate this mini dump (at the Black River Independence Park),” the prime minister said. “It is a huge task, but I know that the UDC has the logistics and management capabilities to do it, and we see that this is important for normalcy to be returned to the town.”

CRITICAL QUESTION

It is not clear how the UDC will interface with other agencies – such as the parish government and NSWMA’s regional arm – that would normally lead, or otherwise be part of, such initiatives.

The more critical question, however, is what wider role might be assigned to the UDC in the post-hurricane rebuilding, for which the Government, through its own resources and commitments from international financial institutions, has identified potential flows of US$6.7 billion over the next three to four years. When Prime Minister Holness announced the plan for the NRRA, he did not announce a role for the UDC, whose website highlights, among its achievements, leadership of Jamaica’s reconstruction after Hurricane Gilbert in 1988.

Unlike the proposed “multi-stakeholder board” proposed for the NRRA (to ensure, said Dr Holness, that “we are making the right decisions (and) that there is transparency and accountability”), the UDC’s board is composed of people specifically appointed by the Government. The UDC is not known for its transparency and has a history of being mired in controversy.

That is why any role for the corporation must be clearly defined and transparent and not at the expense of an NRRA, which, by its legislated structure, must have in-built transparency.