Minister of Tourism, Edmund Bartlett, was on hand at the Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay to welcome the one millionth stop over visitor into the island on Sunday. 

Minister Bartlett, who was joined by a throng of the higher ups in the tourism industry, welcomed to Jamaica, Daynel Williams, a Jamaican-American traveler out of New York. Williams, who was accompanied by her parents and her two children, was showered with gifts and compliments following her arrival at the airport.

Williams, who was heading to Oracabessa, St Mary on her vacation, was quite elated and remarked that she was “very happy” to be the recipient. Her mother, Jennifer Williams, said she had been coming to Jamaica for 30-years and never experienced anything like this before. Mrs. Williams cried tears of joy following the gracious welcome.  

Minister Bartlett highlighted that Miss Williams’ arrival was part of history as this marked the fastest that Jamaica had reached this landmark of one million stop over visitors.

“So, today is a milestone achievement, never before within a year and a month, have we ever had one million stop over visitors coming to our country. When we accumulate stopover and cruise visits, the record is significant because it took us close to twenty years of recording numbers to reach the first one-million of both cruise and stopovers,” Bartlett stated. 

The arrivals of these visitors during the period, he noted, has led to significant boost in the earnings for the country. “The achievement of these million visitors means that we have now generated, since the re-opening on June 15th, 2020, a little over USD $1.5 billion of foreign exchange earnings,” the Minister disclosed. 

This he notes, is quite a significant turnaround, as in March, 2020, tourism arrivals went flat as the borders were closed because of the pandemic. “To have it done in a pandemic makes it even more stellar when there is so much uncertainty, little Jamaica came out in a year and one month with one million visitors,” he noted.   

However, he said this is just the end product of a strategic plan involving robust protocols that has borne fruit. “I’m proud of the responsibility that tourism assumed in the process, because we were the first to introduce the notion of protocols and then we went for consultancy support to help us develop the most robust set of protocols that within a month of completion, the World Travel Tourism Council had Jamaica as the third country in the world to get the safe travel seal because of the protocols we had established.”

The protocols, he said, included training for staff, the procurement of personal protection equipment and also sanitization equipment which were distributed sector wide.  

The Minister is hopeful that by the end of the year, the country should see a combined 1.8 million stop over visitors between cruise and air.

Noel Thompson Shamir Brown

Lilleth Haseley Anderson’s dream of retiring in Hanover, the parish of her birth, is turning into a nightmare, created by the careless action of the National Works Agency (NWA).

While Mrs. Anderson is expressing her frustration and lack of confidence in the NWA and the Hanover Health Department, the NWA’s parish manager is showing more concerned about her taking her problem to the media or taking legal action against the agency.

Although residing in the United States of America, Lilleth remains bonded to her homeland, and in particular Central Flat in Dias, Hanover where she has built a home. The problem she faces was created in 2012 when, in her absence, the NWA imposed upon her property with a shoddy job of drainage works.

Untiring efforts to have the matter rectified over years have only resulted in built up frustration and fear which was heighted last Saturday, June 12, when heavy rainfall sent water streaming through her property and on top of damage already caused, eroded more land.

When the NWA was contacted on Monday, June 14, 2021 communications officer for the western region, Janell Ricketts said she was unaware of the issue but after being briefed by parish manager Gareth Bernard she subsequently informed that “A design was done and it has been submitted (but) we will not be able to proceed until we have been given approval.

We don’t have that approval right now so I’m unable to tell you how soon we will address it… but it will be addressed.“
Relating the background to the ongoing issue, Mrs Anderson said the NWA planted a culvert “and ran drainage through my land. They also cut the neighbours’ drainage into mine without my knowledge.”

Over the past two years in particular, she has been at her wits end trying to get the NWA to correct the problem. “I call NWA attention to the further damages (and) Mr Bernard the Parish Manager came to visit and saw the disaster.” What he saw then “was a gully dividing the land into two.”

She said she produced a copy of the diagram for her property to show that prior to the drainage works by the NWA there was no gully on the property and “He agreed there’s no gully and took it along to submit my complaint to the head of department.” But nothing was done.

Mrs Anderson is not comforted by the latest undertaking. She released text chats with Mr Bernard that have given her no consolation as to when the issue will be resolved.

“In December 2020, I messaged Mr Bernard telling him I will be coming to Jamaica and hope to get results from my property issues but nothing was done to rectify the problem,” she bemoaned.

MOTOR OIL
Adding to her woes is that after heavy rainfall water settles into several holes that harbour mosquitoes. This was brought to the attention of both the NWA and the Hanover Health Department from which an officer visited only to advise her “to put motor oil onto the settlement every 10 days.”

In another chat on May 19, Mrs Anderson advised that she needed date and time for fixing of the drain as she wanted to schedule a date for her return to the USA “because I want to be here for workmen to gain entry to the property.” He responded however, that “we do not have approval to extend the drain. In the conversation I said that I am doing an estimate and in it is a proposal to extend the drain. I repeat, there is no approval. The estimate has not even been submitted as yet let alone approved or contract awarded. I don’t even know if it will be approved. Please continue your business as normal. If a time comes that we need to find you, I will message you or call, ok.”

On June 9, Mrs Anderson again sent a text message to Mr Bernard in which she said, “I have reached out to you many times in good spirit, still no response. However, there’s an issue with the neighbouring culvert. Please review the videos and see how much maintaining is way overdue. Before long, the clog drainage is going to cause flooding and damage into the road way. This will be a form of neglect, poor maintenance.”

Mr Bernard was concerned about the information getting to the media and indicated this when Mrs Anderson asked him to “Please text me your position at Lucea Hanover NWA.” His response was, “Why, so you can have your lawyer write me, or you are writing the media? I thought we were getting along😄.” And after being called for a comment that he said he could not give to the press, he again sent her a text saying, “The media called yesterday.”