$2 billion allocated for emergency patching

Prime Minister, Dr the Most Honourable Andrew Holness, today (December 5) declared the deteriorating road conditions a national emergency, while announcing a further $2 billion to be spent for patching, to reinstate roads to driveable conditions.

“This will be done following the law as well, using emergency procurement rules. We expect that the work will begin immediately. There are 21 grade-one contractors. The National Works Agency (NWA) will use the various methodologies approved for emergency procurement, to engage those grade-one contractors… right across Jamaica to get the patching and reinstatement of roads to driveable conditions,” the Prime Minister said.

Holness gave details during a contract-signing ceremony, held at the Office of the Prime Minister in Kingston.

“This is not going to repair every single road. You will note that the Government already, since Hurricane Beryl, has spent, using emergency methodologies, significant sums to clear and reinstate roads. But you will also note that since Beryl, it has been almost raining every day and so the roads have deteriorated far beyond what we had budgeted and reasonably could have expected,” he said.

Holness noted that the situation has become a crisis “and every Jamaican is of that view, and it should be dealt with as a crisis, as an emergency”.

He said that the Government allocated $3 billion under the Relief Emergency Assistance and Community Help (REACH) Programme, which was focused on community roads, and Members of Parliament (MPs) had some ability to select the roads that were of concern

“This programme will be entirely nationally directed. So, the NWA will supply the Cabinet with the list of main roads that are severely affected, and we expect that we will use this $2 billion to reinstate that critical network. So, it’s high-volume traffic areas, critical connecting points, economically sensitive roads that we will give the initial focus on,” Holness said.

“We're going to make this a strategic, deliberate and direct intervention to ensure that we don't lose anymore productivity because of our road conditions,” he added.

He further stated that the additional $2 billion has brought the total allocation under the REACH programme to $5 billion.

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