Sweet pain... Samuda says long term benefit after traffic woes

It's going to be a sort of "sweet pain", Karl Samuda, a minister without portfolio, has said about the current gruelling corporate area traffic woes come next year when several major road projects are completed.

Samuda, speaking on Wednesday in Clarendon, said the Government was always aware that there would be inconveniences.

But he has rejected arguments that it was bad planning to have started the projects all at once.

“When the Prime Minister took the decision to do that, he took it knowing fully well that there would be some inconvenience but he's a man in a hurry to bring relief to the people of Jamaica and he wants to get it behind him because he knows he has to have the infrastructure on which to build,” said Samuda.

The National Works Agency in collaboration with China Harbour Engineering is undertaking multi-million dollar corporate area projects to expand Mandela Highway, Constant Spring and Hagley Park roads and to construct two overpasses in Three Miles.

Yesterday, Daryl Vaz, another minister without portfolio sought to explain that the government had to undertake all three projects now or else it would have lost  billions of dollars in loans which would mean the infrastructure would have been left incomplete.

According to Samuda, rural communities will soon be  mushrooming as the Corporate Area is now overcrowded, asserting that better roads in the city will allow for easier movement to the centre of commerce.

- Cecelia Campbell Livingston

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