Sept 10, 1999

Road work funds inadequate Councillors seek meeting with Minister COUNCILLORS ATTENDING yesterday's meeting of the Roads and Traffic Committee of the Kingston and St. Andrew Corporation (KSAC), were at odds as to how to spend the $25 million of the Parochial Revenue Fund set aside for a priority road programme. After arguing among themselves about whether the money was adequate to undertake the proposed road work, they decided to seek a meeting with Local Government Minister, Arnold Bertram and his technical staff. Their main concern was that the $25 million of the Fund set aside for the months of May, June and July was significantly less than the amount that was submitted by the Council and could not do the road work. Councillor for the Tivoli division, Desmond McKenzie, said, "the estimate from the Ministry has no merit." With the possibility of the work being delayed further, Mr. McKenzie expressed concern that "as a Council it is a disgrace that we are not able to achieve anything". City engineer, Patrick Aitcheson, said he would not be re-questing a draw down of the funds which he described as inadequate. Meantime, the KSAC has spent approximately $7 million on "emergency work" over the four-month period between April and July. Mr. Aitcheson said the bulk of the money (80 per cent), was spent on an emergency drain cleaning exercise. A breakdown of the expenditure reveal that $420,000 was spent during April, $1 million in May, $3.6 million June and $2.67 million in July. In what was an at times out of control meeting, which was eventually aborted before most of the items on the agenda were dealt with, some councillors expressed dissatisfaction with the way money was allocated for drain cleaning. Some argue that funds are only released to the same divisions each month. When asked to again submit a list of the drains in their divisions that needed "urgent attention", Mayor Marie Atkins said she would not submit a list of drains to be cleaned if it was not reflective of the entire Council. She too was upset that some divisions had been neglected while work was done in others frequently.

Letters to the Editor webadmn@jamaica-gleaner.com Copyright © The Gleaner Co. Ltd.