A SUSPECTED outbreak of tuberculosis (TB) at the Tamarind Farm Adult Correctional Centre in Spanish Town, St. Catherine, has caused the Kingston and St. Andrew Corporation (KSAC) to postpone plans to have some of those prisoners participate in bushing the May Pen Cemetery in Kingston.
Town Clerk, Errol Greene, told The Gleaner the bushing programme had to be put on hold while that situation was sorted out.
"We're trying to explore other options, and we're trying to find the money to do it," Mr. Greene said.
Inmates were expected to resume 'bushing' the May Pen Cemetery on January 6, but that was delayed as the KSAC sought to finalise details, including security arrangements, with the Correctional Services Department.
The programme started in 2001 after a memorandum of understanding was signed between the KSAC and the Correctional Services Department, whereby low-risk prisoners from the St. Catherine, Tamarind Farm and Tower Street correctional centres were used to bush the severely overgrown May Pen Cemetery.
The prisoners worked three days per week and were fed by the KSAC and each paid less than $500 per week. But the project was stopped on several occasions because of violence in Western Kingston and finally by the Minister of National Security some time last year after one of the inmates escaped.
Just over a week ago, three inmates at Tamarind Farm, the minimum security prison from which the KSAC hoped to get a batch of workers, were admitted to the National Chest Hospital suspected of having tuberculosis.
The May Pen Cemetery has, in the meantime, remained an eyesore as large shrubs have transformed the cemetery into a forest.
