Twenty-Four GOJ Spark Programme Consultations Already Held

The Government has held 24 Shared Prosperity through Accelerated Improvement to our Road Network (SPARK) Programme consultations, since the meetings commenced on May 2.

Addressing Wednesday’s (June 12) post-Cabinet press briefing at Jamaica House, Minister without Portfolio in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation with Responsibility for Works, Hon. Robert Morgan, said the consultations have covered 21 constituencies.

“We have developed a priority list of roads in several constituencies based on these consultations, and these roads are being subjected to inspection and rapid assessment to determine the preliminary cost to rehabilitate [them] in keeping with the SPARK Policy mandate,” he said.

Mr. Morgan advised that a list was also sent to the National Water Commission (NWC) to determine the needs and status of waterlines along these roads.

Preliminary costs will be shared with the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) to determine the final priority lists per constituency for the initial $1-million allocation.

The National Works Agency (NWA) has also selected 60 main roads for the implementation of activities under the SPARK Programme.

“These roads will pass through every constituency, in keeping with the policy mandate of SPARK,” the Minister said.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Local Government and Community Development is undertaking a road mapping exercise of all local and community roads.

“One of the purposes of this road mapping is to tabulate the lengths of these local and community roads in each constituency. This will be used to determine the allocation of the $10 billion to be spent on local and community roads,” Mr. Morgan explained.

These roads will be integrated into the already established mapped main roads that are under the control of the NWA.

The maps will be used to form a road register for the Government to manage the country’s road stock.

“The NWA has also engaged consultants to undertake detailed engineering designs, scoping and costing of roads scheduled to be repaired under the SPARK Programme. This is significantly advanced for the 60 NWA roads and these are scheduled for completion in August 2024. For the local community roads, these are being assessed based on the consultative process, so that may take a little more time,” he said.

Mr. Morgan said the two-year $40-billion road rehabilitation programme is a priority of the Government.