The Government has extended by 12 months, the time frame for the full implementation of the recommendations for local government reform.

Minister of State in the Office of the Prime Minister with responsibility for Local Government, Robert Montague, speaking at the second in a series of islandwide town-hall meetings recently at the Portmore HEART Academy in St Catherine, said that the 24-month timetable, set aside by Prime Minister Bruce Golding, was not sufficient time to implement all the recommendations.

"The prime minister mandated that we would have 24 months to complete the implementation of all the recommendations that are outstanding. By September of this year, we wanted to complete the implementations (but) we have been overtaken by circumstances and the prime minister has given me an additional 12 months to complete the implementation of the recommendations," Montague said.

He noted, however, that the measures are being put in place and the ones left to be done have to deal with the legal anchoring of local government. The state minister pointed out that local government is not included in the Constitution and one of the proposals is for the entrenchment of the system. He informed that the draft recommendations to facilitate this process have already been completed and are under review by the attorney general.