Constituencies get $21m each for patching, clean-up

The full extent of the damage caused to roads by Tropical Strom Ian in September amounts to $889 million.

Prime Minister Andrew Holness, who made the disclosure on Tuesday in Parliament, said that Clarendon bore the brunt of the effects of the storm, leaving a $649-million repair bill in its wake.

In St Thomas, road repairs will cost $59.1 million, while Kingston has a bill of $17.75 million.

Holness said that the Government did not have all the resources at this time to carry out all the road repairs at once.

He said the administration will first carry out the cleaning of critical drains, patching of main thoroughfares, and the construction of retaining walls and river training works as funds become available.

At the same time, the prime minister announced the allocation of little more than $1.3 billion to the 63 constituencies to carry out road patching, debushing, drain cleaning, and garbage collection.

This means that each constituency will be allocated $21 million.

The prime minister also said on Tuesday that he was embarrassed to see the levels of garbage in public spaces.

However, he said that the 50 garbage trucks are on the high seas and are expected to ease the chronic problem of delays in collecting waste.

In her contribution to the State of the Constituency Debate earlier in Gordon House, St Catherine Eastern Member of Parliament Denise Daley lamented the appalling conditions of uncollected garbage.

“Dutty Jamaica,” Daley declared as she commented on the unsightly pile-up of garbage across the country, threatening what she said could be a disease outbreak.

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