Bad roads backlash

ARGUING that Members of Parliament (MPs) and the central Government are taking undeserved flack for state of roads which are the responsibility of the municipal authorities, minister with responsibility for works Robert Morgan has urged Jamaicans to put the pressure where it rightfully belongs. “That’s why I came up with the Jamaica Road Register…to empower citizens to know which road belongs to which entity. The Members of Parliament are more visible a lot of the times, they sit in Parliament, and people feel that they have better access to them, so they pressure the MPs… But Jamaica has 27,000 kilometres of roads and most of the roads are owned by parish councils [municipal corporations],” Morgan told the Jamaica Observer during a sit-down last Friday. He pointed out that, while the central Government is responsible for only 5,000 kilometres of roads, it has fixed several roads that are outside of its remit. “The challenge we have is that a lot of the municipal corporations — whether it be a resource issue or whether it be a lack of interest — are not keeping up their end of the bargain. As a minister, and as a Member of Parliament, I have been elected to be accountable, so when somebody comes to me and criticises me about Hagley Park Road or Spanish Town Road, I have to take responsibility. “But I find that I’m not getting that from the parish councils. For example, most of the roads that the Government has fixed in Kingston and St Andrew are not NWA [National Works Agency] roads, they are KSAMC [Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation] roads, and before this new Mayor [Andrew Swaby] came in, the Parochial Revenue Fund was about $700 million a year; it is now over $1 billion, and we have not seen a commensurate increase in the allocation for repairing roads,” Morgan charged. According to Morgan, while it is agreed that neither the NWA nor the municipal corporations have all the resources needed to fix every road, the measurable outcomes of the resources that the corporations get are still not being manifested.

“Don’t blame me,” said minister with responsibility for works Robert Morgan during a sit-down with the Jamaica Observer as he pointed to the role of municipal corporations to repair the majority of Jamaica’s roads.

“It was only when I went public — I think it was a couple months ago — that the mayor [Swaby] decided to increase allocations to each councillor for road work. The mayor has been there for over two years. Why didn’t he increase the allocation?” questioned Morgan. “We have so many instances where MPs come to me and say, ‘Minister, the people are complaining to me about the road,’ and when I go and look, it’s not NWA’s responsibility, it is local government. So you have to make a decision — Is local government going to step up and do their job? And when I say local government, I mean the municipalities, because if they are not willing to fix the roads, then give it to central Government,” Morgan stated. Claiming that there have been occasions in which the NWA went to fix roads and the entity was written to and told by a mayor to, ‘Leave the road alone, it’s a parish council road,’ Morgan charged that there is a desire by municipal corporations to hold on to what they cannot manage, “and that doesn’t make any sense, because clearly you are demonstrating that a majority of the roads that people are upset about are not main roads”. Morgan admitted that several major thoroughfares in the Corporate Area are in need of repair but argued that many, including South Avenue, Lindsay Crescent and Beechwood Avenue, are municipal corporation roads and are to be fixed by the KSAMC. “Duke Street, where the grates that are falling apart and, damaging people’s tyres, those are not the responsibility of the National Works Agency, those are the responsibility of the municipal corporation and yes, there are some mayors, across the island who are trying their best, but I don’t believe, particularly the Kingston and Saint Andrew [Municipal Corporation] is trying its best. “So my point is, hold me accountable for my responsibilities as an elected representative and as a member of the Cabinet who has been given the responsibility for roads, but also hold the other people who are also elected responsible. They campaigned and promised you manna from Heaven and all the wonderful things. They need to come and deliver, and it’s not just roads,” charged Morgan. While encouraging Jamaicans to use the JamaicaRoadRegister.gov.jm portal to see which roads are the responsibility of their local authorities and which are not, Morgan expressed hope that the soon-to-be introduced One Road Authority will make municipal corporations more accountable.

The pothole riddles Fairdene Avenue near Ackee Walk in St Andrew is among several roads in the Corporate Area in need of repair and controlled by the Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation.

“It is not the intention of the One Road Authority to disempower municipal corporations, it is to give them tools and give citizens tools to hold both central government and local government accountable. “For example, the people who throw the things on the road off the trucks, the trucks that are driving without cover, the people who are letting go water on the road, destroying the road, the cement trucks, the people who are digging up the road to run pipes and don’t fix it back, the developers who have destroyed most of the roads in Kingston with the sewage pipes that were not installed properly, those are things that disrespect the taxpayers of Jamaica, and those are things by next year will come to an end, because not only will the One Road Authority be able to find people, but the One Road Authority will also be able to go to court, and sue,” Morgan explained. “We are going to take on the people who are destroying our roads and hold them accountable, because a lot of the damage to our roads is not necessarily because the road wasn’t fixed good, but because of the usage patterns of people who have the overweight trucks; your truck is supposed to only carry 80 tonnes, but you have 120. Our roads were not made for 120 tonnes. “So we are thinking of working with Minister [of Transport Daryl] Vaz. I know that he’s working on bringing back scales, and it’s not just scales that are put down one place, I know that he’s planning mobile scales... You go to St Thomas, Paul Bogle Highway and it’s sand and gravel thrown away all over the road, and nobody wants to take responsibility. So, if the cement industry, the haulage industry, and other industries that use the road do not wish to voluntarily regulate themselves, then the Government has no choice but to regulate them,” said Morgan. He added: “So what is going to happen is that we are going to impose harsh penalties on these companies, and it is not going to be the $300,000 that is in the Road Traffic Act — that is not being enforced — it is going to be worse because the One Road Authority is going to have its own enforcement officers. “So it’s not police that is going to come and hold you accountable. The One Road Authority will have its own army of enforcement officers working with the police and others to show these people that the disrespect that they have shown to our roads cannot continue,” declared Morgan.