Denzil Taylor - The NDM's hope in Portmore

Taylor

Lloyd Williams, Senior Associate Editor

DENZIL A. Taylor, 47-year-old businessman, is the candidate of the National Democratic Movement-New Jamaica Alliance for Mayor of the Municipality of Portmore.

Q: Why do you want to be Mayor of Portmore, and what in your background qualifies you for the job?

Taylor: I am in this race because I believe I can make a difference, I believe that the people need a difference and I think that the people at this time are going to make a difference.

I believe that with my vision, 'Take back your power', and with the kind of leadership from my own business experience and from my experience in politics, I can provide a kind of governance which is going to unite the people ... involve all of the stakeholders, all of the parties involved.

Q: What, specifically, is your vision for Portmore?

Taylor: It is based on community order and beautification; health and environmental problems; job creation, and strengthening of the Municipality Act.

With respect to community order and beautification, I will tackle the problems of businesses springing up all over residential communities with no order in their development. I will also resolve the problems of stray animals by removing them from the streets under the new Act and also impounding them. And to take it a step further, sell them if necessary, to put (revenue) towards our budget. I would also establish parks and green areas for children and adults to relax and play.

Mr. Taylor said that as Mayor of Portmore, he would have drains cleaned regularly as the problem of mosquitoes emanates from there. A trained medical technologist, he said the mosquito is a vector of equine diseases and given the fact that the Caymanas Park horse-racing track is in Portmore "we have to give this priority".

He said people who continue to throw garbage in gullies would be fined, and fogging to get rid of mosquitoes would be stepped up with householders being educated about its importance.

Mr. Taylor sees job creation as a major national problem, with Portmore being a microcosm of the nation. "We have to look at how the young people are going to get jobs and to begin that process, we have to begin with training. The first part of that process is skills training and I propose that HEART/NTA, Portmore, be linked with the hotel training programme of HEART/NTA, Runaway Bay, St. Ann, to provide training in the hospitality industry as is now done in Runaway Bay.

"The municipality could then lobby with central government to identify investors in a joint programme to construct a hotel-training school on UDC land in the resort area of Hellshire. In addition, the Municipality of Portmore through Portmore Expo could encourage other investors to invest in this construction."

In addition, he said Portmore Community College could be given accreditation to train Public Health Inspectors not only for Jamaica but for the rest of the world.

To strengthen the Municipality Act, Mr. Taylor said, he would lobby with central government to entrench in it, the full separation of powers ­ that is directly elected mayor and directly elected deputy mayor.

He would call for a fixed election date set for the third Thursday in June every three years, and no more than two consecutive terms for the mayor or deputy mayor.

Also he would call for a balanced budget "because we cannot continue to borrow like central government. To deal with all our needs, we have to grow out of our problems."

Q: Where will you get the money to undertake all the developments you have in mind?

Taylor: Initially, there will be no new taxes on the citizens of Portmore. Government has promised a subvention. In addition to that, the municipality would lobby the government to make sure that the three MPs (in whose constituencies the 11 Portmore communities are) be given five per cent of the national budget so that in the initial stages we can begin to look after our own affairs. In addition to that we are going to get a portion of the motor vehicle taxes, land taxes and so on, that are going to be collected from the people of Portmore.

Mr. Taylor who was educated at Clarendon College in the parish where he was born, at Calabar High School, Kingston, the University of the West Indies and the University of Technology, lists among his political experiences the presidency of the Republican Party of Jamaica and the vice presidency of the New Jamaica Alliance.

In the October 2002 General Election he ran unsuccessfully under the NDM-NJA banner for the parliamentary seat of St. Catherine South.

Q: How do you view your chances in this mayoral election?

Taylor: Well, my chances are as good as any but you must understand that we have institutionalised ignorance and therefore people have just voted for the two major parties over the years. I believe that the people of Portmore with their intellectualism will look at the issues, look at the candidates and they will come out and vote against political parties which have practised political gunmanship and gunman-association; those which have practised political donmanship and donman-association; political drugmanship and drugman-association, "bolo" politics and political divisiveness. I believe that our people in Portmore will rise above that and vote their conscience and if they come out and do that I will be ahead of the race.

Mr. Taylor is sales manager of Sunshine Snacks, Naggo Head, Portmore, south St. Catherine. He is married with five children.