Ken Chaplin

The management and implementation of Highway 2000 and the way in which the tolls have been imposed were classic examples of how not to govern. A great deal of the problems have been related to the deliberate strategy of secrecy and lack of meaningful consultations by the government with the public, particularly the people of Portmore, a community of more than 250,000 residents. Shortly after it came into power in 1989, the government placed transparency on a high order, but have failed to deliver in many instances.

The project was conceived in 1994 and a pre-feasibility study done in 1996, but the project was only announced to the country at the end of 1999, when work on the final documents were well advanced. There were no written reports or documents available to the public until after the preferred bidder, Bouygues, a French company, was selected in 2001- five years after the pre-feasibility study had been done!

Clifton Yap, an architect, had taken an early interest in the project since it was first announced, shortly before he became President of the Jamaican Institute of Architects (JIA) in year 2000. His concern was that a project of this magnitude had significant social, economic and physical implications for the country, and needed to be planned and developed in an open and transparent manner, with the widest possible consultations with local professionals, other government agencies, and the general public.

These concerns were expressed in 2000, at a meeting of the JIA with Kingsley Thomas, then managing director of the Development Bank of Jamaica, and the czar of the project.
They were also expressed at the Public Forum on Highway 2000 put on by the Farquharson Institute of Public Affairs in September 2001. However, to this day, according to Mr Yap, many aspects of this major project continue to be shrouded in secrecy and obfuscation, and the public is only fed bits and pieces of public relations releases from time to time.

One of the things that Mr Yap takes issue with is the government's repeated pronouncements that Highway 2000 is a mainly private sector investment project. He has pointed out that not only has the government put up US$92 million borrowed from local pension funds, but that the people of Jamaica are ultimately responsible for the servicing of the money borrowed by the Concesionaire Trans Jamaican Highways Ltd, the Jamaican limited liability company set up by Bouygues.

In addition, the government has handed over existing public roads, namely the Old Harbour Bypass and the Portmore Causeway, and in the future, has committed to do the same with the Melrose Bypass. The government is also providing land, paying for land acquisition, and the costs associated with the relocation of homes, businesses and public utilities.

He said that the recent Petro Caribe loan from Venezuela to the government and people of Jamaica, of which US$260 million has been earmarked for Highway 2000, should put to rest the governments propaganda that the project is being funded from private investments, and should call in to question the reason for giving the foreign company a 35 year license to charge tolls to the Jamaican people.

Another issue is the high toll rates being charged, which has been one of the major public complaints especially from the residents of Portmore. The rationale put forward by the government is that the Concessionaire needs to recover their investment as well as make a return on the nearly US$300 million spent on Phase 1A, the leg from Kingston to Sandy Bay including Portmore, which has just been completed, with the Portmore related work said to have cost some US$100 million.

Mr Yap argues that these figures are grossly inflated, as Bouygues had initially bid US$141 million dollars to build Phase 1A, and the government has boasted of the project being on time and on budget! How does one explain the approximately US$159 million cost difference that the Jamaican public is being held to ransom to service through tolls? And how does the government justify accepting the servicing of loans made by the Concessionaire at the high interest rate of approximately 12 per cent per annum, when much lower rates of long term financing should have been sought for infrastructure work such as this project?

In all of the public discussions about Highway 2000, another fact that has escaped the attention of the media and the general public is that contractually on Phase 1A, Bouygues, the French company, has everything to gain and nothing to lose. Their local company Trans Jamaican Highways Ltd. as the contracted Concessionaire, is the entity that receives money from NROCC, the government entity managing this project, and is the company that has obtained commercial loans on the project.

Trans Jamaican Highways Ltd. in turn pays out all the moneys received to their parent company Bouygues for the construction of Phase 1A, so that once all payments have been made for the portion of the work just completed, Bouygues would have received all of the profits that they had built into their initial bid of US$141 million, plus an additional approximately US$159 million! Bouygues can then leave Jamaica, which they have said they are doing, and leave Trans Jamaican Highways Ltd. to operate the toll concession.

If for whatever reason, the local company is unable to service the commercial loans obtained, they can end the Concession, thereby leaving the taxpayers of Jamaica, through the government, to take over the servicing of all the debts incurred. The recent frantic rush by the Jamaican government to obtain money from Venezuela was most likely to stave off the embarrassment of this happening before the next elections, as it is rumoured that a significant debt repayment will soon be due.

Arguably, the biggest success of the Highway 2000 project is that it has become one of the easiest excuses for the government to incur debt and to spend vast sums of public money with absolutely no public scrutiny or accountability. At some point soon, the people of Jamaica need to wake up and see the project for what it really is.

'What was I thinking?' Chris Brown speaks out

Fashion Saturday

Colourful Coif