Prime Minister Urges Patience with Work on the Southern Coastal Highway Project

As work continues to complete sections of the Harbour View to Port Antonio leg of the Southern Coastal Highway Improvement Project (SCHIP), Prime Minister, the Most Hon. Andrew Holness, is urging residents and commuters who have been inconvenienced to be patient.

“I ask our Jamaican citizens and the residents of Portland and St. Thomas to pardon the progress. Ultimately, you will be the beneficiary of this new development,” he said.

Mr. Holness said that the infrastructural development project aims to improve the overall area, noting that the narrative, by some, that the Government doesn’t care about the people in the parish is false.

“The Government could have decided to not use the current alignment and go and build a road in the hill and bypass where the people live but, instead, we decided – ‘let’s bring the infrastructure to the people because the people are going to be the beneficiary of better water supply, better Internet, better roads, and greater economic possibilities in housing and industry that is coming’… and we didn’t just build a road.

“We [are] also [developing] the Morant Bay Urban Centre, which is now under construction. It is a well-thought-out comprehensive development plan for the people of St. Thomas and Portland,” he said.

The Prime Minister was speaking on Thursday (July 13) during the official opening of concrete roads built in McDonald Place, Olympic Gardens, St. Andrew West Central for which he is the Member of Parliament.

Mr. Holness acknowledged that more could be done to ease the discomfort being experienced by residents.

“Yes, it comes with dislocation… and I am the first to say that much better could be done in terms of ensuring the control of dust, allowing persons to enter their property safely, and keeping one lane at least in a drivable condition while the other is worked on.

I know that the various contractors and supervisors have made attempts to do that, but they have not been consistent in doing [so],” he stated.

Consequently, Mr. Holness added, “I have given directives now that the management of the South Coast Highway Improvement Project, particularly the section from Harbour View to Port Antonio, must fall under the direct management and supervision of the head of the National Works Agency.”

The Prime Minister also informed that he is getting more directly involved in the project, noting that he met with the Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to Jamaica to discuss, among other things, infrastructural issues.

“I raised with them the need for this project to be completed as quickly as possible. So I am expecting that there will be greater speed and alacrity in the completion of the project. But I still urge our Jamaican citizens, particularly those who live and traverse the area of St. Thomas and Portland, to bear in mind the great complexity of the project that is being undertaken and the fact that there is no alternative route that could be used,” he said.

The SCHIP represents the largest integrated infrastructure programme of works to be undertaken in Jamaica.

The Harbour View to Port Antonio leg of the project spans the parishes of St. Andrew, St. Thomas and Portland, and incorporates the communities of Bull Bay, Mezgar Gardens, Albion, Yallahs, Morant Bay, Seaforth, Cedar Valley, Port Morant, Golden Grove, Hector’s River, Boston and Port Antonio.

The multibillion-dollar project is being executed in three parts: Part A – May Pen to Williamsfield, 28 kilometres (km); Part B (ii) – Harbour View to Yallahs Bridge, 17.4km; and Part B (iii and iv) – Yallahs Bridge to Port Antonio and Morant Bay to Cedar Valley, 123.65km.