Purkiss confronts SPARK work crew

WESTERN BUREAU:

Just days after lamenting in Parliament about the unsatisfactory state of the roadwork being done in her constituency under the SPARK programme, Hanover Eastern Member of Parliament Andrea Purkiss halted work by a crew in Hopewell last Friday.

Reports are that shortly after a work crew arrived in the Pondpiece section of Hopewell and started doing excavations without notifying the residents about the impending inconvenience, Purkiss turned up and stopped the activity.

“You people cannot just come and dig up people’s gateway without any prior notice, it is total disrespect,” she was overheard telling the workmen, who then repaired the area.

Over recent weeks, Purkiss has been expressing disgust with the road repairs being undertaken in her constituency, saying in several instances, work had started and then ended abruptly without being completed.

In a previous interview with The Gleaner, Purkiss had described the programme as “flawed and lacking in coordination between participating agencies”.

According to her, the same work team had previously gone into four different areas in her constituency and left the work incomplete without giving any timeline as to whether or when they would return to complete it.

“They have gone into other areas and done the same thing – drop materials, dig up the place, and left the work projects incomplete,” said Purkiss. “The material left behind are washing off the roads; they need to finish one road and then move on to another.”

“What they are doing in Eastern Hanover is an injustice to the residents of the whole parish,” she added.

The SPARK programme is a J$45-billion Government of Jamaica (GOJ) infrastructure initiative designed to rehabilitate and upgrade deteriorated community, parochial and main roads across the island.

“You are here now starting Pondpiece and you have not completed Cho Cho Lane and Zion, you have not completed Top Hill or Tryall Gardens, so you are coming now for the people in Pondpiece to be flooded out as well?” Purkiss asked last Friday before ordering the crew to stop working until she could get clarification from Robert Morgan, the minister in charge of works.

Purkiss noted that the material left along the roadway for the unfinished projects is also a hazard to pedestrians. She said a senior citizen recently tripped over road repair material left in the Daffodil area of Sandy Bay and suffered injuries.

On Monday, residents blocked several roadways in the Chester Castle Division to protest the state of the roadway. Purkiss said while she was not aware of the protests prior to them happening, she was not surprised, as the residents are growing increasingly frustrated.

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