Poor maintenance affecting parochial roads in St James
Published:Thursday | August 31, 2023 | 12:11 AMAlbert Ferguson Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
DESMOND MCKENZIE declared that poor maintenance programmes, or lack thereof, have contributed to the erosion of several parochial roads in the hills of Southern St James.
McKenzie, the portfolio minister for local government and community development, made that observation while touring parochial roadways in the Maroon Town area of the constituency on Wednesday.
“When you look at certain portions of the road you can see the quality of the road that was built many years ago,” McKenzie said of the Maldon Road. “You can see it was well built, but what was lacking was the maintenance portion of the road.”
While he did set a timeline for the commencement of the rehabilitation work on this road, McKenzie gave the assurance that the roads would be repaired and that the technical team in his ministry at the St James Municipal Corporation would work on the details.
“These roads have seen decades of neglect,” the minister said. “We are not going to be able to physically deal with all the roads at the same time, but we are committing a significant amount of funding from the ministry through the Equalization Fund.”
He stated that he had given instructions to councillor Everest Coke (Jamaica Labour Party Maroon Town Division) to work with the superintendent of roads and works at the corporation and the technical officer in the Ministry of Local Government to ensure that they can properly access the emergency funding, especially where roads have broken away.
“There are some areas that we drove on that don’t really need any work, but the areas that need the work most are the areas we’ll be concentrating on,” McKenzie added.
Homer Davis, the member of Parliament (MP) for St James Southern, reiterated the poor condition of sections of the Maldon Road to Flagstaff Road, which covers approximately eight kilometres of roadway.
He said the legacy he got as MP in 2020 is not something anyone should be proud of.
“You have seen it (poor road conditions) for yourself. This could not have happened in the last three years. It was a continuous erosion that has taken place over the years,” Davis said.
He told reporters that the tour was organised as part of a response to residents’ demands for better road conditions across the constituency.