Revelations about the arbitrary and careless manner in which the JDIP funds are being used, are not at all amusing to people like myself who have been for years agitating to get the roads in our community fixed. For it has been many years that I have been calling the representative (Missing Person!) Delroy Chuck about the conditions in this section of his constituency and the only result to date has been getting from him a disconnected phone number for his councillor who has responsibility for this division!
After failing with MP Chuck and his Councillor with his non- working phone, in desperation, I called Mr. Patrick Wong, the head of the National Works Agency (NWA). I must say after speaking to him, there was a ray of hope since he revealed that he visits the area regularly, was quite aware of the deplorable state of the road and he assured me that it was on the JDIP programme for rehabilitation, including correcting a drainage problem.
That was about a year ago and to date no action here. (And by the way, how do they decide the basis for road rehabilitation since just this week, I noted that the asphalt was scraped off the perfectly good and recently paved Barbican Road from the round about to Millsborough Avenue while other roads which are a worse state of disrepair, are ignored).
Incidental, the reason for the disgraceful state of roads such as ours lies in the ineffectiveness and possible corruption at the Kingston and St. Andrew Corporation, (KSAC ) because for some inexplicable reason, they refuse to enforce the laws enacted to protect residential areas. It is ironic that even from the ''olden days when there was far less traffic around, the colonial masters recognised that residential roads were never constructed to withstand the the battering from commercial traffic and made provisions under the parochial roads act to prevent this, yet the KSAC refuses to enforce the law while not maintaining the roads destroyed because of their negligence.
Now after a cess was imposed on fuel to maintain the roads on top of the increase to property taxes which goes mainly to the KSAC, we still have noting but almost intraversible roads.
I suppose I am being mean in complaining for at least out of the JDIP, we see where the staff of the NWA will be able to work in sheer luxury, their offices having been refurbrished to the tune of in excess of $100 million! Bearing in mind a World Bank report some years ago which stated that the Jamaican taxpayer gets less than 50 cents value in each dollar spent on construction projects, I wonder who will be auditing that expensive refurbishing project?
I think that if this new, young, prime minster would like to demonstrate that he is indeed prepared to do things differently, he should heed the advise of those calling for the JDIP programme to be removed from the NWA and placed into another agency capable of delivering value for money.
But do we really have any such agency in Jamaica?
After failing with MP Chuck and his Councillor with his non- working phone, in desperation, I called Mr. Patrick Wong, the head of the National Works Agency (NWA). I must say after speaking to him, there was a ray of hope since he revealed that he visits the area regularly, was quite aware of the deplorable state of the road and he assured me that it was on the JDIP programme for rehabilitation, including correcting a drainage problem.
That was about a year ago and to date no action here. (And by the way, how do they decide the basis for road rehabilitation since just this week, I noted that the asphalt was scraped off the perfectly good and recently paved Barbican Road from the round about to Millsborough Avenue while other roads which are a worse state of disrepair, are ignored).
Incidental, the reason for the disgraceful state of roads such as ours lies in the ineffectiveness and possible corruption at the Kingston and St. Andrew Corporation, (KSAC ) because for some inexplicable reason, they refuse to enforce the laws enacted to protect residential areas. It is ironic that even from the ''olden days when there was far less traffic around, the colonial masters recognised that residential roads were never constructed to withstand the the battering from commercial traffic and made provisions under the parochial roads act to prevent this, yet the KSAC refuses to enforce the law while not maintaining the roads destroyed because of their negligence.
Now after a cess was imposed on fuel to maintain the roads on top of the increase to property taxes which goes mainly to the KSAC, we still have noting but almost intraversible roads.
I suppose I am being mean in complaining for at least out of the JDIP, we see where the staff of the NWA will be able to work in sheer luxury, their offices having been refurbrished to the tune of in excess of $100 million! Bearing in mind a World Bank report some years ago which stated that the Jamaican taxpayer gets less than 50 cents value in each dollar spent on construction projects, I wonder who will be auditing that expensive refurbishing project?
I think that if this new, young, prime minster would like to demonstrate that he is indeed prepared to do things differently, he should heed the advise of those calling for the JDIP programme to be removed from the NWA and placed into another agency capable of delivering value for money.
But do we really have any such agency in Jamaica?
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