Special programme to ensure proper names of roads
Prime Minister, Dr Andrew Holness, on Tuesday, announced plans for a special programme that will ensure the proper names and addresses for roads across the country.
He said the Government is in the process of documenting the more than 27,000 kilometres of road in Jamaica, and the programme will be derived from this undertaking.
"We're going to have another programme to ensure that all the roads are properly named, because if you look on one map, one road is spelt one way [and] you go to another map, it's spelt another way. And that all the addresses are properly unified," Holness said.
He was speaking at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Myton Gully Drainage Improvement Project in Old Harbour, St Catherine.
The Prime Minister informed that the documenting process will also ascertain which authority - National Works Agency (NWA), Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA) and Municipal Corporations - has responsibility for the various roads, eliminating the occasional issue that arises when roads need to be repaired.
"Sometimes this road needs to be fixed, and when you go to the MP (Member of Parliament) the MP says, 'No, this is a parish council road'. And when you go to the parish council, they say 'No, this is an NWA road'. And then sometimes you go to the parish council and say, 'This road needs to be fixed', and the parish council says, 'No, that's a farm road'," Holness noted.
He added that the situation is worse when a road is laid in a subdivision, but was not handed over to any authority and, therefore, was never registered.
The Prime Minister outlined that once the documentation process is completed, all the roads will be assessed and ranked in order of priority depending on their state of disrepair.
Holness pointed to the $45-billion Shared Prosperity through Accelerated Improvement to our Road Network (SPARK) Programme, which is targeting more than 600 roads across Jamaica.
"Jamaica has over 27,000 kilometres of roads [and] half of them are in a state of disrepair. So, I need to reorient the minds of the Jamaican citizens that you're not going to repair all the roads today or this year. It is going to take you at least a decade to repair roads that have not been repaired in 50, 60 years, some of them, or ever since they were built," Holness said.
- JIS
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