Over the past week the New Amsterdam Town Council has been the recipient of a number of significant gifts and donations from various stake holders. The most significant was a Compactor truck (garbage truck) designed to collect solid waste for disposal.
Minister of Local Government Mr. Norman Whittaker handed over the truck to the New Amsterdam Town Council last week. The donation was made in front of the New Amsterdam Town Hall on Strand, New Amsterdam.
Compactor trucks were also presented to the Rose Hall Town and Corriverton Municipalities.
The Minister congratulated the New Amsterdam Municipality which is the oldest and one of the largest in the country for being one of the better organized municipalities in the country.
The minister said that local government is an important aspect of democracy and noted that after visiting some of the Municipalities and Neighbourhood Democratic Councils he concluded that not much is being done.
“There is gross underachievement he noted”. He observed that the people and their representatives are disjointed. “People are not involved in discussion and project implementation and they feel neglected so they become disinterested, thus things fall apart.”
Not enough is being done in the area of rate collection and the Minister called on the respective NDCs and Municipalities to do more in respect to the collection of rates and taxes.
In 2006 there was no NDC that made a 50 per cent revenue collection, the Minister said. The council also received half of its $10M yearly subvention.
She said that the acquisition of the machine followed a request to the Ministry, last year.
Mayor Claude Henry expressed gratitude to the Local Government Ministry.
The Town Council on Tuesday signed a memorandum of understanding with telephone giants Digicel for an undisclosed sum of money to help rehabilitate the Children Play Park at the Esplanade playfield.
The deal which was signed at the New Amsterdam Town Hall is for three years. Signing on behalf of the Mayor and Town was Mayor Claude Henry while Digicel’s Public Relations Manager, Shonnet Moore, signed on behalf of the telephone company.
And the Council was also the recipient of two computers courtesy of the overseas-based Group, Council of Friends of New Amsterdam (COFONA) which is made up of a group of former residents of New Amsterdam.
These persons now live overseas and have come together to help revive the town of New Amsterdam. The group is led by Dr Leonard Lewis.
It had already donated four computers to the council to help make the office fully computerized.