Allen labels Railway Corporation as bad corporate citizen

Social activist O. Dave Allen, who is representing business operators at the People’s Arcade in Montego Bay, is sceptical about the St James Municipal Corporation’s call for the Jamaica Railway Corporation (JRC) to address the current rodent infestation at the facility, which the JRC owns.

During a recent meeting of the municipal corporation, Montego Bay Mayor Homer Davis said that the JRC should take responsibility for rodent eradication at the arcade, for which J$3 million has been allocated.

But in commenting on the situation, Allen accused the JRC of being responsible for the under development of a large percentage of Montego Bay’s urban centre, including the arcade.

“In respect to the rat infestation, the JRC, to me, has been a very bad corporate citizen. They have created this ‘ghettorisation’ of a large chunk of the urban centre, including the People’s Arcade and the adjacent properties, in terms of leasing out and creating shops,” Allen told WESTERN STAR.

“A meeting with the JRC chairman, Ferris Ziadie, took place in June 2017, and one year and nine months had passed since he announced about transforming the People’s Arcade, and little has been achieved so far to fulfil the commitment made. From the beginning, I was very cynical about the JRC’s intervention, because it is my view that they have no intention of facilitating the small business people that operate within the arcade.”

Allen added that the St James Municipal Corporation should take partial responsibility for the arcade’s maintenance, as the facility’s water connection is in the corporation’s name.

“The mayor and the municipal corporation have a clear responsibility and obligation, and they cannot absolve themselves from their responsibility. The arcade’s water is in the name of the municipal corporation right now, and the National Water Commission has taken off the water from the arcade,” said Allen.

Efforts to get a response from the JRC regarding the municipal corporation’s declaration were unsuccessful.

– C.T.