No funds to move North Gully residents
MONTEGO BAY: Residents who live near the flood prone North Gully area will not be receiving any financial assistance if they want to relocate, according to Prime Minister P J Patterson.
Citing financial constraints, Patterson told journalists in Montego Bay Tuesday that those relocation costs could not be absorbed by the government at this time.
“At the present time, our capacity to finance the relocation is limited by constraints. But we would be prepared to discuss with people in the community alternatives for those who might seek to relocate elsewhere — at their expense and in an orderly fashion,” he said.
The North Gully area, located close to the centre of Montego Bay, was one of the areas heavily affected by January’s flood rains that left millions of dollars in damages across sections of western Jamaica. Residents of the community were offered some governmental assistance in the aftermath, and efforts are now under way to construct an $11.4-million retaining wall that is expected to alleviate some of the flooding in the future.
That project, which has a completion date of February of next year, is being implemented by the Jamaica Social Investment Fund and the contractor is HDB Construction Company. When it is completed, it will see the completion of 340 feet of wall near the area of the Albion Lane bridge.
The affected community is just one of many such communities constructed in flood prone areas where housing really should not be constructed. According to the Prime Minister, while the government was unable to provide financial resources, it could and would find other ways to address the issue.
“If we are realistic,s we have to recognise that the capacity of the government to relocate, at public expense, all those who live in areas where they ought not to, is very limited and very restricted,” he said. “And what we have to do, in the first instance, is to ameliorate the conditions in those areas to make them as safe as we can. And to ensure as best as we can the enforcement that will prevent other people from moving into these areas to add to the congestion and to make the problem more difficult to deal with.”
