During Tuesday’s sitting of the House of Representatives, sharp exchanges took place between Prime Minister Andrew Holness and Opposition Leader Mark Golding regarding the deteriorating state of the country’s road network and the entities responsible for it. The discussions followed Holness’s update on the Government's ongoing efforts to repair and rehabilitate the roads.
Golding took issue with Holness’s assertion that climate change and the People’s National Party (PNP) were to blame when the latter was in power. He criticised the prime minister’s remarks as a “pretence at accepting responsibility (for the poor state of the roads) but in reality, seeking to dodge responsibility.”
“To blame the appalling state of the road network in Jamaica today on climate change is totally disingenuous. The reality is that there has been an absence of any proper road maintenance policy for years, and you have been in office for nine years so you have superintended nine years of neglect over the maintenance of Jamaica’s road network for which the people are holding you accountable now,” Golding stated.
He added emphatically, “This idea that climate change caused the bad roads in Jamaica, mash down that lie! It has nothing to do with it; we have had heavy rains in Jamaica for years. Climate change is a reality and it’s coming at us, but to blame the poor state of the road network of the country on climate change is a farce, and the people of Jamaica are holding you accountable for it, and you’re trying to pretend that it’s the PNP responsible for it when you’ve been in power for nine years.”
Golding further asserted, “To say climate change is responsible for all the potholes in the country is absolute nonsense, and the people don’t believe it and don’t accept it. You’re going to pay the consequences for it politically in the months to come.”
He accused Holness and his Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Government of focusing on major road projects at the expense of others. “What bothers me about your approach is that it’s going to continue into the future if you are allowed to continue in Government. There will be inadequate maintenance as a permanent feature of your government’s regime because you continue to be fixated on major road projects because of the collateral benefit that flows from those projects of which we are all aware,” Golding noted. He also accused the JLP of abolishing the Road Maintenance Fund.
In response, Holness stated that the JLP eliminated the Road Maintenance Fund as it was ineffective. “Even with the existence of a Road Maintenance Fund, Jamaica’s roads in 2015, 2014, 2013, and 2011 were in no better condition than they are today,” he remarked.
Holness countered Golding by saying, “The same protests that existed about bad roads then exist now. The truth is that the Road Maintenance Fund had no impact. What makes the impact is not more taxes that you dedicate to a particular cause. What makes an impact is more revenues from which you can properly allocate.” He criticized the PNP, insisting, “All the PNP knows to do whenever it forms the government is to ‘tax, tax, tax, tax.’ This Government generates revenues so that we don’t have to tax.”
Emphasising the role of climate change, Holness argued, “You cannot ignore that we had the highest level of rainfall in the last 30 years. That is not something to ignore; it is a reality.”
He also addressed Opposition spokesman on Works Mikael Phillips, stating, “The current state of the roads is the responsibility of the government.” He concluded, saying,
“As I have said in my presentation, we are responsible for the maintenance of the roads.”
