By Cedric Johnson, CorrespondentWHITEHOUSE, IN Westmoreland, which is fast developing into a commercial and residential community, has one major problem. It has no final resting place for its dead.
After almost two years of negotiation and bitter wrangling over a proposed site, the Urban Development Corporation (UDC) and the Westmoreland Parish Council are still at odds and are seemingly nowhere near to reaching an amicable settlement on the matter. Mayor of Savanna-la-Mar, Councillor Ralph Anglin, told The Gleaner that the Parish Council was "still waiting on UDC to make a decision on the site."
According to the Mayor, in its last communication with the Parish Council, the UDC stated it was in the process of carrying out a survey on the Mount Edgecombe property, a part of which has been earmarked to site a 20-acre cemetery for Whitehouse and its environs.
The UDC, which owns the Mount Edgecombe property, had reportedly expressed a willingness to sell the proposed cemetery site to the Parish Council for just over $1 million, which many thought was a give-away. However, the PC indicated that it sought a waiver, whereby, it would get the site either at a reduced price or without paying for it.
The Council then proceeded to lobby Prime Minister P.J. Patterson, who oversees the UDC and in whose constituency the area falls, to assist them in securing the waiver. However, the Prime Minister reportedly informed them that "the UDC is a business and should be allowed to operate as such", which resulted in the agency changing its position, telling the Council that it was prepared to let it have the 20- acre site if the Council was willing to enter into a barter or land exchange arrangement with them.
When the matter was raised at a recent meeting of the PC, Councillor Ivan Pinnock, who has been representing the PNP in the Whitehouse division for some 40 years, was visibly angry at the new development. In lamenting that the Government is being hijacked and taken over by powerful interests and persons such as UDC and its chairman, Dr. Vin Lawrence, he stated that, "The people of Whitehouse want to know who is Prime Minister of Jamaica; is it Vin Lawrence or P.J. Patterson?"
