Fitz Jackson, MP for St Catherine Southern
The government’s move to have Portmore established as the country’s 15th parish has reportedly been met with a roadblock.
The Government had introduced a bill to establish the municipality as a parish; however, it has faced a challenge from the Opposition, which maintains that it would affect the current constituency boundaries.
The law dictates that no constituency may cross parish boundaries which would require the redrawing of some boundaries.
Member of Parliament for St Catherine Southern Fitz Jackson says no move can legally be made on the Portmore parish initiative before the next parliamentary general elections.
“The roadblock that they are going to run into is that… having just had a general election last year, parliamentary election, no constituency boundary can be changed until the next election. So the constituency boundary of South St. Catherine (and) East Central will, in effect, remain until the next general election (in) 2030 or whichever date before that election will be called.”
Accordingly, he said, the Electoral Office of Jamaica “has made that clear” in the meetings that it has had with representatives of both the governing Jamaica Labour Party and the opposition People’s National Party.