Make development happen, PM tells UDC
Prime Minister P J Patterson last Friday mandated the Urban Development Corporation (UDC) to take a lead role in the implementation of development projects to fulfil the manifesto pledges on which the administration was returned to office in the October 16, 2002 general elections.
“There are certain things that the people expect us to achieve, not for partisan advantage, but to fulfil what we committed ourselves to do to advance the quality society for all Jamaica and to lead the people to a brighter, better future,” Patterson told the UDC board at their annual retreat at the Grand Lido Negril hotel.
Stressing that wealth creation for the Jamaican people and investments for national economic growth had to be the Government’s priority objectives in the current term, Patterson said state agencies such as the UDC had to move beyond being enablers of economic activity and to become the catalyst for economic activity, growth and job creation.
“The Government is looking to the UDC, based on its track record, its physical resources and technical capability, to be a catalyst for economic growth and job creation this year and during this administration,” Patterson said. “The corporation has to, in accordance with its motto, ‘make development happen’.”
He suggested that the UDC, which is a major landowner, should be prepared to make lands available to young entrepreneurs for agricultural activity that can lead to greater levels of food production in the country.
Insisting that agriculture had to be a key activity in achieving sustainable levels of economic growth and job creation, Patterson told the UDC board: “We can’t allow good agricultural lands to lie fallow,” adding that the organisation had to decide which tracts of arable land should be returned to agriculture.
He said that developments such as tourism-related activities and housing, in which the UDC has been actively engaged, should be accelerated on other portions of land owned by the UDC.
He also noted that one of the best ways to prevent persons from squatting on the corporation’s lands was to develop them.
The prime minister also pointed to inner-city development as an area that required immediate attention and one in which the UDC had to be in the forefront of urban renewal.
He said the corporation would be called upon to play a major role in the Inner-city Renewal Programme, which was discussed extensively at this month’s Cabinet retreat.
Said Patterson: “The UDC, by its laws, charter and definition, has to be in the vanguard of our effort to develop the downtown business district.”
He emphasised, however, that inner-city communities are not confined to the Corporate Area or to any particular constituency.
“We will never be able to solve the problem of urban congestion if we do not stem the rural drift by developing rural communities,” Patterson added.
The UDC used the board retreat to update Patterson on the various projects now being undertaken by the corporation and the priorities for the 2003/2004 financial year.
He prompted the agency to “blast out of the system” those projects currently in the pipeline, and commended them for the projects they have implemented over the years. These, he said, included the schools’ building programme, the upgrading of the National Stadium, projects funded by the San Jose Accord and the Lift Up Jamaica programme, among others.
In encouraging the corporation to even higher levels of performance, Patterson said: “I want my tenure as the minister responsible for the UDC to culminate in the kind of spectacular development that Jamaica needs to advance the quality of life for all our people.”