Minister of Transport and Works Mike Henry. - Ian Allen/Staff Photographer
The Government will have to come up with $833 million to repair the roads damaged by flood rains last month.
Transport and Works Minister Mike Henry says this is a preliminary estimate which was prepared by the National Works Agency (NWA) and includes $50 to $60 million already spent for emergency repairs. However, access to some communities, particularly in Portland, remains difficult.
"We still have roads left to be opened and we have areas where we can't get heavy equipment in," Henry said as he provided an update almost one month after a surface trough dumped several inches of water on the island's north and north eastern coasts.
North Coast Highway
Addressing the weekly post-Cabinet media briefing on Wednesday, Henry noted that the price tag did not include the cost of repairing a portion of section three of the North Coast Highway which collapsed during the rain which lashed the island for almost 10 days.
Henry said while he is to meet with Finance Minister Audley Shaw to discuss how the repairs will be financed, the present global economic crisis would make it difficult for the government to find the money.
"I continue to say to the country, unless you introduce a user-pay concept and unless we recognise that we should add a cess on the fuel that we use and create a dedicated fund to repair the roads, 59 per cent of the roads will not be rehabilitated," Henry said.
"If we are going to have to use only the funding that we normally get from the budget, then I'm afraid it is going to be catch-as-catch-can, rather than dealing with it as we should," added Henry.
The Transport Minister has repeatedly called for a cess on gasoline to create a dedicated fund to repair roads and gullies, and while there has been no official response from the Bruce Golding administration, this is believed to be one of the revenue measures being considered as it crafts the 2009-2010 budget.
Road repair bill from February 2-12 rains
Parish Total cost
St Mary $592M
Portland $197M
St Ann $30M
St Andrew $5M
St Catherine $4M
St Thomas $4M