Henry Says Road Clearance Bill at $400M and Climbing

Minister of Transport and Works, Hon. Michael Henry, has indicated that it will cost at least $400 million to clear roadways, following the heavy rains associated with Tropical Storm Nicole over the past few days.
“So far, it is about $400 million just to clear the roads,” Mr. Henry said during the monthly call in radio programme, ‘Jamaica House Live’, hosted by Prime Minister, the Hon. Bruce Golding, on Wednesday (September 29). However, with the rains continuing the figure should have risen sharply since then, and is still climbing.
But, while the rising cost was of concern to the Minister, he noted that, “fortunately”, a number of the damaged roads were already included in the list of roads to be addressed under the $36 billion Jamaica Development Infrastructure Programme (JDIP), which is ready to hit the road.
“It will reduce, perhaps, the volume of the immediacy of the work, but we can begin to attack that, once the water subsides, because we’re now ready to kick off the (JDIP) programme,” he said.
The JDIP is a five-year public works programme, funded by a loan secured by the Road Maintenance Fund (RMF) from the Export/Import Bank of China, at an interest rate of five per cent.
Implemented by the National Works Agency (NWA) on behalf of the Fund, with China Harbour Engineering Company Ltd (CHEC) as the contractor, the programme is slated to repair roads and bridges, train rivers, reinforce sea defences and build bridges.