Jamaica’s Public Accounts Committee has turned up the heat on the National Water Commission over roads left scarred by open trenches and patchy repairs for months, and sometimes years, after pipe works.
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“It doesn’t work”
The NWC appeared before the parliamentary committee as it examined an Auditor General’s performance audit on how the utility manages capital projects. Under a memorandum of understanding with the National Works Agency, roads dug up for water and sewer work are supposed to be restored.
Committee chairman Julian Robinson said plainly that the arrangement is failing, telling officials he could point to weeks, months and years in which roads had not been reinstated, the Jamaica Observer reported.
Roads named at the hearing
Opposition spokesman on land and works Lothan Cousins pointed to Retreat Avenue, Seymour Avenue and Wellington Drive in St Andrew, where he said repeated repair attempts had failed. He called Retreat Avenue “a disaster” and described the situation as disgraceful.
Government MP Heroy Clarke raised a $237 million pipeline project from Quarry to Meggie Top in Salt Spring, St James. He said the road surface laid after the work had developed potholes once the rains came.
What the NWC says
NWC chief financial officer Fabian Christie told the committee that the commission owes the NWA nothing for road reinstatement, although there are disputes on other projects. The utility says it spends about $200 million a year on reinstatement through contractors it hires directly.
Garth Jackson, the NWC’s vice-president for engineering and capital projects, said some of the trouble comes from laying large sewer and water mains beside ageing pipes, which can cause the ground to sink and settle after work is finished. Officials accepted that the agreement with the NWA needs to be reviewed.
Why it matters
Broken roads are not a small irritation. They damage vehicles, slow businesses and add to the daily cost of living for ordinary Jamaicans, and the hearing goes to the heart of how public money is spent and who answers when work is left unfinished. Clear deadlines and a single point of accountability for reinstatement would be a simple test of whether the committee’s pressure brings change.