FOUR years after a Sunday Observer article embarrassed the government into unveiling a $200-million development plan for the bushy and overgrown National Heroes Park, not even the first phase of the project has been completed. Phase one was to have been finished by October 1, 2001.

There have been improvements made – for example there is a marked improvement in the heroes’ memorial area – but government officials concede that they still have a long way to go. From as far back as 1998, the P J Patterson administration has talked about upgrading the park, saying it should be a place befitting the country’s national heroes.

Finally, in January 2001, after photographs of overgrown grass on the tombs of the country’s heroes were splashed across this newspaper’s pages, the then local government minister, Arnold Bertram, announced an ambitious four-phased project.

The plan was to be funded by the government, with help from the Environmental Foundation of Jamaica (EFJ) and the private sector. Inflation has now pushed the projected cost to an estimated $250 million, and the funds are slow in coming.

According to Bertram, funding has been a problem from the start.

“Somehow, each year there was never the financial support for it. One year we took the decision to (use whatever money was available just to start),” he said.

Administrative changes within the ministry and the EFJ have also been blamed for the slow pace of the project.

“We (at the ministry) have had a change of administration and we have been careful about when we can work because we really can’t waste the money,” said the ministry’s director of physical planning, Lorna Perkins.

“The plans had to be re-submitted to the Cabinet sub-committee to get them up to date on what is happening and what is needed. EFJ (also) had a change in administration as well and so they have to get familiar with the project.”

But the government is still firmly committed to making the park worthy of those who are buried there, said the local government ministry official.

“The project is not going away and that is what keeps us going,” Perkins said. “It has to be fixed. It is where our national heroes, our prime ministers and our distinguished Jamaicans are buried, or where their monuments are. It has to be done.”

Bertram agreed, describing the park as “the single most important part of what constitutes our heritage, both symbolically and in real terms”.

“This is where we show off the seven Jamaicans whose contribution, to what we know as independent Jamaica, has been the most far-reaching,” he said.

“It (Heroes Park) is not just a dead place where you visit. It should be a learning experience, where every child comes out of there with a desire to be educated about who a Jamaican is.”

But investors have not exactly been throwing money at the project, a factor Perkins believes may be linked to the park’s proximity to a number of depressed communities.

“People might want to invest but when they look at the location… they think it wouldn’t be worthwhile,” she said.

The EFJ has provided some funding which has helped the project’s implementers, Cornerstone Ministries, get some work done. The development of the park is being done in tandem with the Greater Almond Town Redevelopment Plan, Perkins explained.

She said work done to date includes:

. the construction of an $8.7-million car park at the eastern side of the park;

. the landscaping of the heroes’ memorial area where the heroes are buried; and

. the upgrading of the well, which is to be commissioned by September.

The irrigation system is also 40 per cent installed. Altogether, the work under phase one is estimated to cost $25 million, said Perkins.

And only recently, a $7-million dollar contract was awarded to contractors D Bisasor and Associates Limited out of Kingston who will upgrade the historical gardens and the Eventide memorial section of the park. The work should begin in another month, Perkins said.

The Eventide memorial is where the victims of the 1980 fire on the Myers Ward of the Eventide Home for the Aged are buried. Over 140 elderly women lost their lives in the blaze that left damage amounting to $150,000.

According to Perkins, while the work completed to date is not immediately visible from outside the park, this would change with the completion of work at the southern end.

“What we have done so far is really not very visible. You would have to go inside to see. We hope that now, doing the southern section, people can then begin to see,” she noted, adding that they also hoped to do additional work on the fencing.

“The (periphery) fencing has started. We are going to be doing a little more. We hope to spend another $2 million in this phase on the fencing (which is concrete-based with metal rails),” she said.

But Bertram is concerned about the pace of the project.

“I can’t be happy with the pace,” he said. “Between 1962 and 1965, this country came to a determination that we needed national heroes. I can never be satisfied that in 40 years that is an acceptable rate of progress, not if national heritage and national heroes mean what we say they mean – which is that they are important in where we are coming from and are the processes out of which this nation we call Jamaica has been born.”

He believes the private sector has a role to play in helping to fund the project.

“In every country in the world, as far as I can make out, that has brought a sense of importance to the population of the country’s heritage, it has been done on the basis of a partnership between the state and the private sector.

Such a partnership is yet to emerge in Jamaica for this particular purpose,” Bertram said.

If and when the funds are available, there are plans to:

. complete the main entry gate;

. install recreational features like a promenade, a jogging track, wetland features, and nature trails;

. install concessionaire stands;

. build an administrative building and an indoor sports complex, including the renovation of existing gymnasium and sanitary facilities;

. landscape the entire park; and

. install lighting fixtures, in addition to other park facilities like basketball and netball courts.

Once the project is completed, Cornerstone Ministries will train residents to work in the park.

“The Cornerstone Ministries is the project implementers and a component of this is to not only develop the park in terms of infrastructure, but to do some training so that after the park is developed the surrounding community can be employed meaningfully in the park in terms of gardening and so on,” Perkins said.