Delroy Chuck
THE TRUE measure of how broke, nay bankrupt, this Government has become can be easily discerned from the state of our roads. While the Government merrily highlights the beautiful Highway 2000 and the uncompleted North Coast Highway, which are being built with foreign loans, virtually every other road in Jamaica is in varying states of disrepair.
Maintenance is our best investment. Yet, the maintenance of roads, or of anything, is not a priority of this Government. In Government offices, the photocopy machine, air-condition units, X-ray machines and other equipment are allowed to fail before being repaired, when periodic maintenance could have avoided the failure. In truth, every department head is aware that equipment must be maintained but the repetitive response is that no money is available. Now, it is clear for every Jamaican to see how disgraceful the roads, through poor maintenance, have become. When will this government, if ever, learn that regular maintenance can avoid huge repair and rehabilitation costs?
Throughout Jamaica, the residents in general and motorists in particular are crying out for attention to their roads. The Gleaner, on Tuesday February 21, highlighted St. Mary as the Pothole Parish, but I am sure there are other parishes that could compete 'favourably' with St. Mary. In Northern St. Andrew, every road is an obstacle course over which motorists treacherously navigate and are grievously inconvenienced. The main roads, repaired by the National Works Agency, have fallen into disrepair. Yellow marks are placed around the many potholes, for what reason is not clear, as over the past several months these potholes have got worse and, still, only the yellow marks are freshly repainted. As motorists slowly navigate these potholes, traffic is slowed down considerably, especially at peak hours.
HAPHAZARDOUS ROADS
Maintenance to the main roads is haphazard and poorly done. In Northern St. Andrew, it is the genetically connected that are given the road contracts repeatedly, and they continue to do substandard work repeatedly, which means that the same roads are rehabilitated yearly, sometimes within six months. Lest anyone attest that I am being unfair, simply check how much money has been spent on Jacks Hill Road, Russell Heights, Cherry Drive, Graham Heights, etc. over the past two or three years and they are still in a disgraceful state. Surely, the money allotted over the past three or more years has not been properly spent; in fact it has been wasted and probably meant primarily for political work. For the records, at no time is the Member of Parliament even contacted or informed about repairs to these and other main roads, even though he gets the complaints and blame when things go awry.
The residential roads are worse. For some inexplicable reason, residential roads are the responsibility of the parish councils instead of the National Works Agency, even though parish councils are starved of funds and unable to repair more than one road per month in any division. Parish councillors are allotted an average of less than $200,000 per month for road repairs in their division, which can barely buy the material to fill the potholes on any road.
ACCUMULATING ALLOTMENTS
Then, the councillors are not allowed to accumulate their allotments to a decent figure to properly fix a road, as before they know it, the cash-starved councils will use their money on some other emergency repair. The net effect is that even the small allotments made are usually wasted, as sums less than
$1 million or $2 million cannot properly fix or maintain any road.
The sad truth is that road repair is oftentimes a political gravy train, which partly explains the present disgraceful state of our roads. The country is just not getting value for money. It is not right that the same road, through poor work, is fixed year after year, which means that many others are ignored. Alas, the present Government lacks resources and owes even their genetically-connected contractors billions of dollars and are not prepared to do any more work until they are paid. If the citizens are to get relief, this business of road repairs and maintenance demands better management, better use of resources and less political connection and corruption.
Delroy Chuck is an attorney-at-law and Member of Parliament. He can be contacted at Delchuck@Hotmail.Com.
