Councillors irked by PS’ request for list of roads for SPARK programme

WESTERN BUREAU:

A request from permanent secretary in the Ministry of Local Government and Community Development, Marsha Henry-Martin, sent to the chief executive officers in municipal corporations across the island, for a list of roads to be included in the The Shared Prosperity Through Accelerated Improvement to our road Network (SPARK) programme, was treated with scepticism in the Hanover Municipal Corporation (HMC), when the letter was read during that corporation’s March monthly meeting.

SPARK is a road improvement programme, announced by Prime Minister Andrew Holness during his 2023/2024 budget presentation.

Aimed at modernising more than 2000 roads islandwide, the cost of the programme is estimated to be about $40 billion.

According to the prime minister, all 63 members of Parliament are to be allocated a minimum of $150 million for use under the programme to carry out road repairs and rehabilitation work across their constituencies. Although no allocation has been made under the programme specifically to councillors, the word out of the Office of the Prime Minister is that the expectation is that the MPs and councillors will cooperate with each other, while consultations are carried out with residents within the constituencies.

“Under the SPARK programme you are kindly being asked to submit a list of 10 parochial roads per division within your municipality that can be considered for rehabilitation. Please note that the estimates are not required at this time, just the names of the roads,” the letter from the permanent secretary stated.

But the councillors have taken issue with the prompt that estimates were not required, and questioned how and when work on any named road would commence, without any idea of the cost to repair or rehabilitate them.

In an interview with The Gleaner, mayor of Lucea and chairman of the HMC, Sheridan Samuels, shared his own concerns.

“Is it that we are going to be doing a database of roads? Are we going to get these roads repaired? How can the roads be repaired without estimates. Is it just a waste of time?” he asked.

He acknowledged, however, that the queries had not yet been forwarded to the permanent secretary, and that the March meeting of the HMC was the first chance that all recently elected seven councillors have had to fully discuss the matter as a group.

Samuels suggested that while the questions would eventually be forwarded to the permanent secretary, the onus is on policy-makers within the ministry to address them.

“Let us as councillors understand what is really going on. Why would you want a list of roads without any estimate?” he queried.

The Spark programme is described as a road repair and rehabilitation programme, which bears a shift in policy, from a reactive to a preventative road-maintenance programme.