#KINGSTON, February 4, 2020 — Parliamentary Secretary in the Office of the Prime Minister, Senator Robert Morgan, says the Government is being strategic and deliberate in the design and implementation of eco-friendly and sustainable projects that will benefit all Jamaicans.
“We were the ones who said no port at Goat
Island; we were the ones who said we are going to ban single-use plastics and styrofoam,
and announced the proposed Cockpit Country Protected area,” he said.
Speaking
at the Houses of Parliament update meeting and tree-planting exercise at the
National Heroes Park in Kingston on January 30, Senator Morgan added that the
National Tree Planting Programme also forms part of environmentally sustainable
projects and aims to rebuild Jamaica’s contiguous forest, while building climate
resilience islandwide.
“It’s
not just because we are environmentalists at heart why we have made these
decisions, why the Prime Minister has led these decisions, it is because if we
do not make these decisions, then Jamaica as it exists now, the beauty of it,
the sustainability of it, will not exist for a future generation,” he said.
Senator Morgan argued
that the greatest threat to human existence is climate change, adding that
small island developing states, such as Jamaica, are even more vulnerable than other countries to
challenges ranging from the impacts of climate change to rising sea levels.
“So planting mangroves helps to protect the coast, it
also helps to build more land to create a kind of buffer between population
centres and people, but it also creates habitats for fish,” he noted.
Meanwhile, Senator Morgan said construction of the new
Parliament is necessary to improve the governance of the country, while
ensuring that it is accessible to all.
“I think twinning the
tree-planting exercise with the Parliament are two symbols of our development
as a mature country recognising the importance of doing the things that may not
necessarily, on the face of it, seem to be important… but recognising that
creating symbols of your maturity, symbols of your evolving nature as a country
are very important to young people and to old people, so that they can have
confidence in your society – that it is moving in the right direction,” he
said.
More than 1,000 trees
are expected to be planted as part of the National
Heroes Park Redevelopment and Government Campus Project.
For
his part, Senior Project Manager, Urban Development Corporation, Leighton White,
told JIS News that construction
drawings for the new Parliament
building should be completed by June of this year.
“We will take that to
tender and once we get a contractor that is prepared to undertake the project,
then we will have that person, that team start in January of next year,” he said.
The
construction is slated to last for 24 months.
During
the meeting, winner of the Government’s Houses of Parliament Design
competition, Evan Williams and his team, Design Collaborative, outlined the
concept for the structure,
Construction
of a new Parliament building forms part of the National Heroes Park
Redevelopment and Government Campus Project, which is a component of a master
plan to redevelop downtown Kingston.
It features an interconnected building with space to accommodate a football field and an area for outdoor movie watching.
PRESS RELEASE by Chris Patterson, JIS – Jan 30, 2020