Road repair ‘blame game’

WHILE Jamaicans continue to express concern over deteriorating parochial roads, central government and local representatives elected on an Opposition ticket are trading barbs, with each side contending that the other is culpable. At the core of the dispute, minister without portfolio with responsibility for works Robert Morgan insists that municipal corporations are not doing enough to fulfil their responsibility for sustaining roads, while the National Caucus of People’s National Party (PNP) Councillors argue that they are being hobbled by inadequate resources. In a media release Tuesday morning, Mayor of Spanish Town Norman Scott strongly rejected comments Morgan previously made to the media, regarding poor management of parochial roads by local authorities.

Scott argued that the Government should provide municipal corporations with adequate funding instead of engaging in a “blame game”. He said that of Jamaica’s 25,000 to 27,000 kilometres of roads, municipal corporations are responsible for more than 15,000 kilometres of parochial roads, while the National Works Agency (NWA) maintains approximately 5,000 kilometres. The mayor contended that an annual budget of just over $6 billion across all parishes is simply not enough.

Arguing his point, Scott highlighted disparities in the budget available to works being carried out by the State, including the $45-billion Shared Prosperity through Accelerated Improvement to our Road Network (SPARK) programme. Scott also pointed to the $4-billion Relief Emergency Assistance and Community Help (REACH) Programme which addresses road and infrastructure needs in rural communities. “The Parochial Revenue Fund, from which municipal roads are maintained, is not a personal road fund at the disposal of individual councillors.

Resources are allocated through municipal corporations, which must contend with competing demands for road maintenance, drainage, disaster mitigation and other municipal responsibilities as well as being saddled with offsetting the shortfalls in salaries,” he argued said. “The National Caucus of PNP Councillors is also calling for increased allocations to the Parochial Revenue Fund and a sustainable financing framework that gives municipal corporations the capacity and resources to properly maintain roads for which they have statutory responsibility,” added Scott. But Morgan was unrelenting in his positi…