Montague

GOVERNMENT SAYS it will miss its September 2009 deadline for making local government autonomous of central government.

Responding to questions from South East St Catherine Member of Parliament Colin Fagan during Tuesday's evening's sitting of Parliament's Standing Finance Committee, Prime Minister Bruce Golding said it appeared the deadline would have to be extended to June 2010.

"We are somewhat delayed in the sense that some of the institutional arrangements have not progressed to the point where that September date could be a finite, firm separation point," Golding said.

The governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) had promised in its election manifesto to abolish the Ministry of Local Government. The party argued that the local authorities should be autonomous and not subjected to the day-to-day dictates of central government.

Reduced in 2007

On taking power in September 2007, Golding reduced local government from a ministry to a department and placed Robert Montague in charge.

Montague's responsibility for local government is scheduled to end in September, after he has completed the task of making the parish councils into an autonomous body.

On Tuesday, as the committee perused the estimates of expenditure, Fagan suggested to Golding that the process of separating local government from central government "must have reached a stage where Montague would soon be heading to a new ministry".

Golding joked that "there are big things in store for the minister".

According to the prime minister, the delay in making the local authorities autonomous is due in part to a lack of institutional capacity and funding issues.

"We have not been able to provide the funding for a lot of the preparatory work ... the training and putting in place of new systems," he said.

"We have not been able to provide the funding in as timely a manner as would be required."

Golding added: "There is also a deficit that has to be closed in terms of some of the councils and their own capacity to take on this additional responsibility."

He told the committee that "there are some critical targets that will be met by September" but noted that "the process will continue".

daraine.luton@gleanerjm.com