WESTERN BUREAU — The National Housing Trust (NHT) through its Relocation 2000 project has allocated $500,000 to assist in the drain-cleaning project, now underway in the Railway Lane area of Montego Bay.

According to Member of Parliament Dr Horace Chang, the additional funding for the project was raised after he made representation to the NHT.

Work on the project began more than two weeks ago, after residents blocked several streets leading into the community to protest against the poor state of the drains.

Following the protest representatives from the St James Parish Council toured the area and allocated $400,00 to clean the drains.

At that time however, the local authority, as well as Dr Chang, conceded that the allocation was insufficient to complete the work and promised to make representation for more funding.

Earlier this week, work on the project came to a halt after the initial allocation was exhausted.

But, Dr Chang told the Observer on Thursday that the work is expected to resume next week.

“I have asked the superintendent at the council (Tubal Brown) to put the necessary mechanism in place to get the work restarted next week so that the cleaning of the drains can be completed very soon,” Dr Chang said.

Gerard Miller, the council’s deputy mayor, said the $500,000 allocation should be sufficient to complete the cleaning of the drains, which is now about 75 per cent complete.

He pointed out however, that additional funds would have to be secured to put a drain maintenance programme in place in the area if the drains are to remain free from blockages.

“Once the work is complete we have to put in place a maintenance mechanism because once there is no mechanism for maintenance, we are going to have the continuous flooding and the piling up of garbage in the drains,” Mitchell argued.

In addition, Mitchell said a public education programme would also have to be implemented in an effort to keep the drains clean.

“We will have to get the Health Department and WPM (Western Parks and Markets) involved in the education process,” he told the Observer.