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 position, arguing that the issue is not simply a lack of funding but how existing resources are administered.

SCOTT… the Government should provide municipal corporations with adequate funding instead of engaging in a blame game.

“When local authorities demand additional public funds, taxpayers have a right to inspect how existing funds are managed. This call for accountability is not coming from the minister of works alone. In her July 2020 audit of Mayor Scott’s own St Catherine Municipal Corporation [covering financial years 2014/15 through 2018/19], the Auditor General [Pamela Monroe Ellis], uncovered severe administrative deficiencies,” said Morgan, adding that the audit magnified flaws in strategic planning, incomplete road inventories, an absence of documented criteria for selecting roadworks, and defective contract records. He further noted that the caucus failed to disclose in its statement that municipalities collect independent revenue from approximately 30 distinct internal sources, including trade, shop, and market fees, as well as from subdivision, billboard, and parking charges, directly boosting their annual budget. Against that backdrop, Morgan debated whether an increase in budget would see any changes in the management of parochial roads, arguing that previous increases have only resulted in “close to $2 billion of misappropriation and fraud by municipal corporations under the leadership of the People’s National Party, including the Manchester Municipal Corporation and Mayor Scott’s own St Catherine Municipal Corporation”. The works minister also sought to put to bed what he deemed an unfair comparison between his ministry’s spending for long-term projects, and funds available to municipalities. “In the release, they have attempted to compare the municipal corporations’ annual Parochial Revenue Fund allocation of just over $6 billion alongside the $45-billion SPARK allocation to claim financial neglect. This comparison is fundamentally flawed. The Parochial Revenue Fund figure used represents a single year’s allocation, whereas SPARK is a multi-year capital investment programme,” Morgan stressed. He added that the SPARK programme does not only fund road infrastructure, but also has a portion of its budget dedicated to sewerage, fibre infrastructure, water infrastructure and sidewalks as well as drainage construction. “The contrast in public disclosure is equally stark. While the central government publishes extensive digital tracking for SPARK and has launched the interactive Jamaica Road Register to map every road, a search of the St Catherine Municipal Corporation website and other municipal portals reveals zero listed ongoing projects. This is not demonstrating accountability and transparency. I welcome Mayor Scott’s call for transparency, and I challenge him and the National Caucus of PNP Councillors to join me in achieving it,” charged the minister.