Natalie Neita Garvey, the Opposition spokesperson on local government, says the promised new building regulations will not achieve the desired outcome if the Government fails to staff building departments across all municipal corporations with sufficient and well-trained personnel.

Reacting to announcements by Prime Minister Andrew Holness, Neita Garvey called on Local Government Minister Desmond McKenzie to ensure a human resource audit of the building departments with a view to employing adequate staff, so the effectiveness of the new regulations will be bolstered on the ground by staff to enforce its provisions.

In her statement yesterday afternoon (October 4), the shadow minister argued that most municipal corporations do not have adequate staffing to oversee the number of projects in the parishes and ensure that buildings are built in accordance with approved plans.

“If staff is not adequate and well trained, the breaches will continue and the new regulations will be of no effect”, she asserted.

According to her, the Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation (KSAMC) was the most glaring example of inadequate staff levels as there are only four employees to monitor and police all the building projects in the Corporate Area.

Neita Garvey said this situation contributed to development approval deadlines being missed, resulting in investor disquiet.

The opposition spokesperson also reminded the Government that under the Local Reform Programme in the early 1990s, municipalities retained building fees to allow them to adequately finance the hiring of building officers and offer competitive compensation to ensure proper monitoring of approved plans and issue stop orders in cases of non-compliance.

“No one can be satisfied with present levels of project monitoring in the parishes where incidents of breaches have been increasing. In St Catherine, for example, there is only one full-time building officer and three contractors although large commercial distribution facilities and housing estates are continuously being built,” Neita Garvey contended.

Neita Garvey emphasised that both the promulgation of new regulations and proper staffing of the municipal corporations must go hand-in-hand to ensure the provision of regulatory oversight over Jamaica’s built environment.