MONTEGO BAY, St James – East Central St James Member of Parliament Edmund Bartlett is appealing to Prime Minister P J Patterson to ensure the immediate release of the $46-million that was approved by Cabinet earlier this year for road repairs in the parish.

“The Prime Minister needs to step in now and get the Finance Minister (Omar Davies) to disburse the funds,” Bartlett said, amidst widespread flooding and damage to roads in the parish due to heavy rains earlier this week.

The flooding and damage done to several roads in the parish, including the resort city of Montego Bay, is nothing short of an emergency, the Member of Parliament argued.

It was in July that Cabinet approved funding for the rehabilitation works in St James, three months after sections of the parish were flooded and several roads left in disrepair.

Dennis Meadows, the Jamaica Labour Party councillor/caretaker for the Montego Bay West Division, has meanwhile criticised the government for what he describes as the “political victimisation” of Montego Bay.

“The city’s physical and social infrastructure has been the victim in the government’s game of political football,” he said of the city that is headed by a JLP mayor, Noel Donaldson, and with the majority of parish councillors aligned to that party.

Meadows added that the recent flooding of the town centre and the appalling state of some roads were direct results of the city’s inability to clean the North and South gullies, due to a lack of funds.

He has, at the same time, appealed to the National Works Agency to undertake corrective measures to address the infrastructural within the city.

– cummingsm@jamaicaobserver.com