Licensed rafters operate on a section of Rio Nuevo. (Photo: Ingrid Henry)
No way!
Port Maria mayor rejects plan to take unlicensed St Ann rafters
PORT MARIA, ST Mary — There is uncertainty over whether unlicensed rafters booted from St Ann will find jobs at Rio Nuevo Rafting Village in St Mary.
Tuesday’s efforts to get a comment from the manager of the facility proved unsuccessful.
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The security guard manning the entry told the Jamaica Observer an appointment had to be made to speak with the individual in charge, who was inside. However, the phone number the guard provided rang without an answer.
But the St Ann rafters will find no jobs in St Mary if Port Maria Mayor Fitzroy Wilson has his way. At last week’s meeting of the St Mary Municipal Corporation he vehemently shot down the idea, which he said was being floated unofficially.
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“If the rafters were illegally at White River and they come to Rio Nuevo, what is going to make them legal?” the mayor thundered.
He questioned who had given the go-ahead for the raft operators to move to his parish as his checks with the chief engineer officer, the chief executive officer, and the acting superintendent of police in charge indicated that no one in authority from St Mary had been consulted.
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“They had a problem with crime and violence in their area that the rafters were, and you are going to transfer them to St Mary? What measures are being put in place?” Wilson asked.
“The authorities are going to move them to St Mary; they have to have added security and a proper outline of how the structure is going to operate in our parish,” he insisted.
On February 7 the Tourism Product Development Co (TPDCo) told unlicensed rafters offering their services at White River in St Ann that they had to leave by February 13. According to TPDCo’s visitor, safety and experience coordinator in Ocho Rios, O’Neil Fitten, the White River location was “like a sick cancer patient” and the only solution was to remove the unlicensed individuals.
Fitten explained that authorities decided on that course of action as they are at their wits’ end after receiving a number of complaints about incidents at the visitor attraction.
“The cruise ships don’t stop send reports about this specific location. I was here two weeks ago and, based on my attire, I assume, a guest thought I was an official and he came up to me and said, ‘Sir, I don’t feel safe.’ These are the things that we have to take into consideration,” he said.
Speaking with the Observer that same day, rafters said they had been told to work from Rio Nuevo, but they did not see that as a viable option.
“TPDCo a come tell we fi go Rio Nuevo… but the same man them that is sending us to Rio Nuevo have business up there that they want us to go and work in,” one female operator claimed. “We don’t want to go up there, so we a beg a little extension so we can go to the necessary places and do this thing the correct way.”
They also rejected assertions that they had anything to do with crime and violence at the venue.
But Wilson is determined that those challenges will not find their way into his parish, along with the rafters, and erode the gains made by the police in curbing crime.
“Is it that you are transferring the problem you are having in your area into our space?” Wilson queried.
