PM launches $1b road-repair plan

EAGER POLITICIANS were on Tuesday urged to temper their expectations about how far a $1-billion road programme will help in restoring Jamaica’s flood-hit corridors after weeks of rainstorms.

Each of the 63 constituencies will be allocated $15 million through the National Works Agency (NWA), Prime Minister Andrew Holness announced during the sitting of the House of Representatives.

Some $7 million is being allocated to road patching, $4 million to bush clearing, $2 million to beautification, including sanitation and the removal of debris, and $2 million to drain and gully cleaning for each constituency.

Programme letters are to be distributed to MPs today.

‘The allocations that we have made - the $7 million of the $15 million - have to be used very strategically. The Government does not have separate resources to allocate members of parliament to patch roads of their choice and then make a whole separate allocation for the NWA or the parish council.

“It is not a lot of money! Not a lot of money,” Holness said, as he sought to make the distinction between road patching, for which most of the money will be used, and road rehabilitation.

“It is one pie, it is one set of roads, and we all have to collaborate, so the members of parliament have to work closely with the NWA to look at the list of affected roads and together, make the allocation and selection of roads.”

The $1-billion programme is part of the $2.3 billion needed to bring the roads to drivable condition, the prime minister said.

But a $5.4-billion price tag has been attached to full rehabilitation of roads that have been damaged by the heavy rains.

Holness contended that MPs have been feeling the pressure to respond to various infrastructural needs.

“Let’s look at the roads that are needed to support our economic development and support the movement of traffic, but also let’s look at those roads that cause severe inconvenience to local communities [when impassable],” argued Holness as he justified the spend.