the political ombudsman Donna Parchment brown is raising concern about the continued disregard of
laws relating to the erection and removal of campaign material after a general election
now while some effort has been made to remove some billboards and signs mrs parchment brown
says the political parties need to do more to have them all taken down the 2020 election is long gone
but signs of the september 3 poll still linger political signs and billboards some falling apart
can be seen across the country of note fading green and orange flags on light posts
the constituencies represented by the political leaders also arrived with paraphernalia as we
filmed in southeast saint andrew an ardent supporter of the pnp keith brown questioned
why the billboard should be removed in the first place well in all fairness you know my mp he have
keep executive meeting with us and he told us that they must come down what i think i refuse to don't
mind them because i don't see nothing wrong with it the town and the country planning act dictates
that the signs be removed once the election is over the political ombudsman donna parchman brown
gave political parties a one-month extension that deadline was on october 3 2020. while it is true
that the political parties have the initial duty and obligation and the candidates have
the initial duty and obligation to clean up after they have done their campaign the entity that has
the authority to enforce um to maybe levy signs would be the municipal corporations as well as the
national solid waste management authority and when we contacted the head of the national solid waste
management authority audley gordon he pointed to resource constraints it's very very difficult and
maybe in some way unfair to ask the nswma with its meager meager resource to undertake such a
vast undertaking while we are struggling on the other hand to do our core business to awkward duty
sorry is this in breach of the of the anti-litter laws sure it is so that means you can charge them
um the the the discussion about charging and um applying law to the fullest or the strictest in
this response in this regard sorry is something that you would want to be thinking about um it is
how practical that would be or that but i i will i would much prefer if we apply the most region
and it is really the duty of the party leaders to take down their own fans take down their own signs
and to hold their members accountable so for example if you're a party leader and you have
a member who has not taken down their materials maybe they shouldn't be allowed to sit on a
committee or maybe they shouldn't be allowed to chair a committee or maybe they should be
subject to some censure statement within the political party or in the public space
this is a partnership that is expected between political parties and the political ombudsman
and if the political ombudsman has her way when a next general election is called
every candidate should be required to post a bond so if you're going to put up 40 pieces of material
maybe you need to post a bond of 20 000 500 per item or you know depending on what it is it's a
huge billboard that would require trucks and men to cut it away maybe have to put up three thousand
for a big billboard so that people are actually although they get a wave of the sea that they
would normally pay to do advertising they would be committing to do the right thing or allow the
political ombudsman to utilize those funds along with the agencies to get their material removed