By Petulia Clarke, Staff ReporterTHE ENTIRE Council and administrative staff of the Kingston and St. Andrew Corporation (KSAC) will this September be compelled to attend an out-of-town weekend orientation to assess the KSAC's performance and revamp the "ineffective" old system.
Mayor of Kingston, Desmond McKenzie, announced yesterday that the move is geared at addressing non-performance, after the first meeting of the Roads and Traffic Committee failed to resolve old issues.
The four-hour long meeting deferred 36 items on the agenda yesterday, as there were complaints that some items listed for approval had already been approved, and others had been on the agenda without action since 2001.
Committee Chairman, Councillor Robert Williams, said that there was also a backlog of over 125 pieces of correspondence from various community action teams, citizens and other organisations who had made representation to the old Committee.
Other complaints were that the City Engineer's Department which among other things, investigates building plans for structures was not functioning; that reports from the Traffic Enforcement Department was inadequate and that there seemed to be no correspondence between the groups and the KSAC's administration before the agenda for the meetings was arranged.
MASS CONFUSION
This resulted in mass confusion yesterday, as the representative from the City Engineer's Department was unable to say what matters were under investigation and which had been approved. The representative of the Traffic Department was accused of a hasty and inadequate report on the operations of the Department. Each was mandated to attend the next meeting fully prepared.
"What we have is a situation that has been allowed to disintegrate over a protracted period," Mr. McKenzie said. "The administration will clean up all that has been there for years. "We'll have to do a surgical analysis..."
He said that status reports will be provided in detail after each subsequent meeting, "to cut down on the time we spend at each meeting with questions we're not able to answer."
Mr. Williams also announced plans for the Committee to have representatives from the Jamaica Public Service Company, National Water Commission, Cable and Wireless Jamaica, Transport Authority and the National Works Agency attend future meetings to address issues with the companies.
He said that all work done by contractors will also have to be examined thoroughly before payment is made to any contractor and those who do shoddy work will be prevented from further association with the KSAC. A patching team will also be in place to deal with potholes across the city.
