LINSTEAD: Money sitting idle for over a year while residents suffer bad roads, risk of being raped

LINSTEAD: Money sitting idle for over a year while residents suffer bad roads, risk of being raped

August 8, 2020 0 By Horace Mills

Councillor for the Treadways Division in St. Catherine North West, Sydney Rose, has appealed for Prime Minister Andrew Holness to give the go-ahead for rehabilitation work to commence immediately on the Charlemont Housing Scheme Road.

He said the necessary funds have been sitting idle for more than a year in the bank account of the St. Catherine Municipal Corporation, which is awaiting the prime minister’s instructions.

Rose told The Beacon: “Some funding was promised to fix parts of Charlemont Housing Scheme Road. It has now been two years since monies were sent to the bank account of the St. Catherine Municipal Corporation. A contractor has been selected and, as we speak, those monies are not yet authorized to be expended to treat with the roads of Charlemont.

“I am therefore calling upon the prime minister, who has portfolio responsibility for the National Housing Trust, to treat with this situation as a matter of urgency. The residents are asking; they are requesting; they are begging for the roads – which are in a very deplorable condition for quite a number of years – to be fixed in short order,” Rose further said.

He also expressed concern that the cost of undertaking the project is increasing, considering that the estimate was done more than a year ago.

“The estimate is about $60 million. Unfortunately, because of the period from which the estimates were done to now, I think it would have wanted much more than that [amount of money], because over that period of time you would have had heavy rainfalls and a lot of the roads have been damaged since then and overgrown with shrubs and all of that. So it would require much more money.

“I am asking not necessarily for an estimate to be done, but for additional monies to be added that we could expend and get a proper road. I am asking that the honourable prime minister treats with this as a matter of urgency,” added Rose, who is also a member of the opposition People’s National Party (PNP).

He is not the only one who is this month raising concern about the deplorable condition of the road that runs through Charlemont Housing Scheme.

Councillor candidate for the governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) in the Linstead Division in St. Catherine North West, Clement Dehaney, also lamented the condition of the roadway.

He, in a social media post, accused PNP representative and Member of Parliament for the constituency – Robert Pickersgill, of not updating residents about the project.

Dehaney said: “For many years now, the [Charlemont] scheme is like this; the citizens are crying for help, but no help coming. The government, through the National Housing Trust, allocated $60 million for the road to be fixed from last year June, and nothing happen. Because of the bad road, taxi drivers are not going in the scheme, so it leaves the citizens at risk – especially the women of being raped. We have a Member of Parliament for 31 years and the citizens not hearing nothing from him.”

Dehaney further stated that his JLP colleague, Newton Amos, who is seeking to become Member of Parliament in the constituency, will try to ascertain the whereabouts of the funds allocated.

“Help is coming North West St. Catherine. The man who cares is here. He (Newton Amos) will be doing everything possible to find out where or whose hand the money is in. Help coming; help coming at last,” Dehaney posited.


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