Cop declines to name experts who backed police station drainage
Published:Thursday | November 17, 2022 | 12:10 AMJudana Murphy/Gleaner Writer
Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Warren Clarke has revealed that experts pushed back at reservations about the construction of the Green Acres Police Station, contending that the area could be adequately drained.
In late September, heavy rains associated with Hurricane Ian swamped the land, making the $73-million building located on St John’s Road in St Catherine inaccessible.
The project was due for completion in June 2020 but has been delayed because of drainage woes plaguing the low-lying community.
Clarke told Wednesday’s sitting of the Public Administration and Appropriations Committee (PAAC) that the station is about 90 per cent complete.
The assistant commissioner said the area has always presented challenges because there are no fewer than seven major developments in the vicinity.
“Admittedly, we tried to avoid it because we knew we had problems. We tried to avoid building the station there. However, we were assured by experts that the area could be adequately drained,” Clarke revealed.
“We took their advice, and when we continued, we heard that some other design was necessary to have the area drained.”
“Who are the experts? Where did they come from?” asked Fitz Jackson, member of parliament (MP) for St Catherine Southern.
But Clarke did not name the person or entity or state whether the organisation in question was privately or publicly operated.
After a back and forth between committee members and representatives from the Ministry of National Security, it was agreed that the PAAC would submit questions to the ministry, for which a written response would be provided.
Clarke reiterated that the flood risk was assessed before construction, but there were some adjustments that caused the engineers to redesign the solution.
“That now is being received, and funding is being procured for it, and we are confident that before long, we would have installed the appropriate storm drains to have the property properly drained,” he said.
Jackson recalled that some years ago, one of the major causes of project overruns in the public sector was poor planning.
The MP said that he presumed that adequate planning would have been done for such an important project. He also raised concerns about the entity that changed the “prescription”, which has resulted in the current problem.
PAAC Chair Mikael Phillips said that the Green Acres situation reminded him of the error that was made with Marcus Garvey Drive.
“We built the road and then we tried to put in the drainage after, and it cost taxpayers more money. Hence why Marcus Garvey Drive still floods when we get rain. I thought we would learn from issues like that,” he lamented.
The Ministry of National Security is expected to spend $50 million to $70 million to install drainage, sewerage, and fencing infrastructure, which has delayed the opening of the police station built on lands donated by the citizens’ association.