Is the Government broke?
WHEN you see so many roads across Jamaica left badly damaged, primarily by heavy rain over the last three months, and not fixed yet, you have no alternative but to ask the question: Is the Government broke?
For how else could one read the situation that has seen the State, through its main road set-up, the National Works Agency, flatly fail to lift a finger in effecting repairs to some of the busiest thoroughfares across the island?
Not even after some of the brutal tropical storms and hurricanes to have hit Jamaica have gone their way has there been such a go-slow attitude on the part of the Government to patch or resurface the roads.
You cannot tell me that Spanish Town Road in St Andrew has taken so long to be fixed. Up to last Friday a section of the road was a mess — a major indictment on Prime Minister Andrew Holness and his Government.
A road such as that stretch from the corner of Woodpecker Avenue and Waltham Park Road, down to Hagley Park Road, which borders three constituencies — St Andrew West Central represented by Holness in
Parliament, St Andrew South Western whose MP is Angela Brown Burke, and St Andrew East Central, by Dr Peter Phillips — must easily be a national disgrace.
Others like the Junction Road in St Mary, Washington Boulevard and Ken Hill Drive in St Andrew have been left so alone that you have to wonder if a Government is really in charge.
There is a suggestion that the main supplier of asphalt to the Government closed its doors for the Christmas season and did not reopen until days ago. Could that be true?
The Government must have a system in place which allows emergency funds to be released to fix main roads in particular, because the only people who will benefit from bad roads are those who sell motor vehicle parts.
If a Government cannot do such a basic thing as keeping roads in good shape, particularly main roads, it should not seek to win elections. Some of us are plain tired of excuses.
Come on, Mr Holness, do better than that man! Get those roads patched or resurfaced. The public has been suffering for too long.