By Monique Hepburn and Nagra Plunkett, Staff Reporters
WESTERN BUREAU:
Jamaica-based social advocacy group, Community Organisation for Management and Sustainable Development (COMAND ), is proposing that the government remodels the problem-plagued Operation PRIDE programme and use it as a means to eliminate poverty in keeping with the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.
"The government is a signatory to the U.N. Millennium Goals, which has as one of its mandates, poverty eradication by 2015. Operation PRIDE would be an ideal programme to set the government on a path to achieving this objective," said COMAND Chairman, O. Dave Allen, in an interview yesterday.
The proposal comes against the background of concerns that the 1,800-acre Retirement property in St. James, one of the largest and most ambitious developments under Operation PRIDE, is being overrun with armed criminals. As a result of lagging development and sloppy monitoring, beneficiaries are fearful of taking up residence in the community.
According to Mr. Allen, the programme, if managed properly, could be viewed as a "global best
practice" as it contains all the
components to guarantee good
governance, including gender equity and enterprise development.
REVISIT THE PROGRAMME
"The government has stumbled on a matrix to offer these opportunities to the people," the COMAND chairman contended. "Everybody is afraid to touch Operation PRIDE but I am asking the prime minister to revisit the programme and refurbish it as one of his legacies before he leaves office."
Mr. Allen explained that his organisation is trying to reassert itself in light of the failures of the National Association of Provident Societies (NAPS), which was established as an umbrella
organisation to represent the
interests of beneficiaries in Operation PRIDE sites.
He went on to explain that the PRIDE programme addresses the issue of inter-generational development by giving people land and providing shelter, which is a fundamental need that offers security to families.
When The Gleaner visited Retirement on Monday, residents complained of being held up and robbed or having their building materials stolen.
George Brown, a resident of Meadows Vale site, said he wanted the National Housing Development Corporation (NHDC), regulators of the PRIDE programme, to hasten infrastructure work in Retirement to provide them with proper roads, electricity and water.
Residents also expressed disgust at the NHDC for not putting in mechanisms to prevent squatting at the three sites contained in the Retirement development.
In release from the NHDC, the corporation said, "A way has been found that construction work can recommence in the near future and the present difficulties overcome."
The NHDC release stated that it is "aware of the challenges facing the purchasers, including those posed by criminal elements and expects that within a few months, purchasers will be able obtain titles for their lots."
