Phillips declares Holness not welcome when Troy bridge reopens in Manchester

Member of Parliament for Manchester North Western Mikael Phillips has sounded an alarm, charging that Prime Minister Andrew Holness' presence is unwelcome at any ribbon cutting ceremony when work to replace the collapsed Troy bridge has been completed.

The more-than-decade-old bridge, now dubbed the “Troy death trap”, collapsed in August 2021, displacing hundreds of students, motorists, and residents.

Phillips has long bemoaned what he considers the Government's sluggish response to having the bridge replaced, noting specifically the inconvenience caused for stakeholders along the north west Manchester and southern Trelawny border.

He has also claimed that students were forced to switch schools, citing parents' reluctance and concern around having their children traverse the river via makeshift ziplines.

“The people dem sey fi tell the prime minister say when the bridge done, nuh come up dey come cut nuh ribbon, and smile wid dem, like him did know how dem did a suffer. Ah sorry him never inna Parliament the day fi him get [the message]. Nuh come up dey!” said Phillips.

Phillips said his calls for a temporary structure have also fallen on deaf ears.

“Him nuh fi come up dey, because six months ago he stood in Parliament and told me that he was coming up there to see and experience what the people were experiencing, and six months gone and up to now, he has not come to see what is happening up there,” said Phillips, who was addressing a divisional conference at the Toll Gate Primary and Infant School on Sunday.

According to Phillips, since the bridge collapsed, three young children almost drowned, among other woes.

“The banking a wash wey more, the teachers still a fi travel an extra nearly seven miles to go school, the minister of education who said she would have looked into it and give them a little stipend for the extra gas, has not done it, the little bus that wi did beg them, that if rain fall and the pikney dem cyaa cross the river, they can get home – the pikney dem still a sleep on the Trelawny side. It's a shame how we are treating our own people,” said Philips.

The 1869 Troy bridge sits along the western Manchester and southern Trelawny border.

NOT MUCH INTEREST

Phillips has also criticised Marisa Dalrymple-Philibert, member of parliament for Trelawny Southern, claiming that she had not shown much interest in bringing redress to citizens facing the Troy bridge woes.

“As the member of parliament on the Manchester side, mi can sey mi shame on the Member of Parliament on the southern Trelawny side, because the only time she has visited that location is the time Warmington came there which is over a year ago,” he contended.

Describing the Government as incompetent, Phillips, who is also a vice president of the PNP, said the Holness-led administration had failed miserably in stemming crime.

“Five years of state of emergency and it has not made any difference,” said Phillips, who went further to reference recent murders in St James and Clarendon in which states of emergency are currently imposed.

“Crime was less under PNP, and even with the state of emergency him (the prime minister) cyaa do nutten. If I was the teacher, and Holness the student, he would get F minus,” said Phillips, evoking laughter among orange-cladded supporters.

Phillips said Jamaica was yearning for the leadership of the PNP, claiming that the JLP had either corrupted or destroyed several infrastructural and other developments the PNP had spearheaded.