The St Catherine Municipal Corporation, which is controlled by the opposition People’s National Party (PNP), has passed a resolution for a portion of the North South Highway to be named in honour of Portia Simpson Miller.
Mrs Simpson Miller, who is a former prime minister, also served as PNP president.
The resolution, passed by 14 votes to 13, called for the thoroughfare from Mandela Highway in St Catherine to the border with St Ann to be named Portia Simpson-Miller Highway.
Already, there is a town in St Andrew named Portia Simpson Miller Square, formerly 3 Miles.
But the PNP has been pushing for a section of the North South Highway to also carry her named.
The move is a pushback to the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) government’s recent announcement that the entire highway will be named in honour of former prime minister Edward Seaga of the JLP.
The PNP, in a press release today (June 5), said the municipal corporation’s resolution highlighted that Mrs Simpson-Miller “was instrumental in negotiating the construction and funding of the highway with Chinese President Xi Jinping when she visited China in 2013”.
Mayor of the St Catherine Municipal Corporation Norman Scott said Mrs Simpson-Miller is the most deserving individual to have the highway named after her because of all she has done to ensure its construction, said the PNP.
The PNP further reported the mayor as saying that Mrs Simpson-Miller “is a woman of the soil” and she was born and raised in the parish, not far from where the highway is located.
Mayor Scott said immediate steps will be taken to carry out the wishes of the municipal corporation in having the said portion of the highway named in honour of Mrs Simpson-Miller.
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