Parchment advocates partnership with parish council

Thursday, January 19, 2012

BLACK RIVER, St Elizabeth - New Member of Parliament for South East St Elizabeth Richard Parchment has pledged to work on a non- partisan basis with parish councillors in his constituency and has urged them to present development plans for their divisions.

Parchment, the outgoing councillor for the Myersville Division (People's National Party - PNP), who was making his farewell presentation to the St Elizabeth Parish Council last Thursday said he envisaged "partnership" between himself and councillors as a central plank of his period as a MP.

"Be it JLP or PNP Councillors who will be part of South East St Elizabeth, you have no need to worry," Parchment, who defeated the Jamaica labour Party's (JLP) Franklyn Witter in the parliamentary elections on December 29, told the council.

"I am also asking my Councillors to present their development plans for their divisions, because I want to incorporate it as part of the entire development plan for the constituency," he added.

He argued that smooth development of St Elizabeth required "a partnership between the members of parliament and the councillors and we have to have a good relationship and we have to have congruence in terms of our whole development plan ..."

Councillors in the St Elizabeth Parish Council have from time to time complained of poor communication between parliamentary representatives and themselves.

Parchment pledged that in order to stay close to the workings of the council he would attend monthly council meetings.

"I want to give my commitment that I will always be a part of this council, I am not going to sit out like some people do, I will try and make it to the regular monthly meeting," he said.

In expressing frustration at the hurdles faced by parish councillors, Parchment highlighted the inadequacy of street lights - a vexed issue in the St Elizabeth Parish Council.

"I want to say one of the failings of the council is that for four years I have sat here and not even one street light allocated to us in four years...," said Parchment.

"I met with our new minister and I told him that before the end of this (term) I would love to see some street lights been allocated because this is one of the demands that I get from my people on a regular basis and that's no different from any of the other councillors... I am asking and will be using unconventional means to ensure that at least we get some street lights allocated to the parish before the end of this council which I suspect wont extend beyond 31st of March," he said.

It is widely expected that the new PNP Government will announce Local Government elections before the end of March.