MORE than half of the $27 million allocated to the Kingston and St Andrew Corporation, under the government’s Hurricane Emergency Repair Programme, will be spent to repair roads and drains in East and West Rural St Andrew, Kingston mayor Desmond McKenzie said yesterday.

Mayor McKenzie told yesterday’s meeting of the council that $15.5 million will be spent to fix roads and drains in 10 rural divisions and the remaining $11.5 million in 12 urban divisions.

The rural divisions where roads will be repaired are Lawrence Tavern, Brandon Hill, Stony Hill, Chancery Hall, Red Hills, Gordon Town, Mavis Bank, Dallas, Harbour View and Kintyre.

Repairs in urban divisions will be done at Rae Town, Duhaney Park, Seivright Gardens, Hagley Park, Molynes Gardens, Maxfield Park, Payne Lands, Trafalgar Park, Vineyard Town, Mona, Papine and Hughenden.

McKenzie said contractors would be selected to do the work by tender.

“Our understanding is that it will go to tender and that we will discuss with those divisions, and our recommendations for contractors will be submitted to the Ministry of Local Government,” McKenzie said.

At the council’s meeting last month, McKenzie expressed disappointment that the council was allocated only a small fraction of the $900 million needed to repair damage done to roads and drains in the Corporate Area by rains from Hurricane Wilma.

“It is quite obvious that the government does not take this matter very seriously, and is more concerned about balancing the 2005/2006 budget to meet the conditions set by its external lenders, than about meeting the basic needs of the people of Jamaica,” the mayor said then.

Parish councils islandwide, including Kingston and St Andrew and the Portmore Municipality, submitted a preliminary estimate of $3.4 billion for hurricane damage to central government. However, the amount was slashed to $300 million out of which $53 million was given to the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA) for work they claim was done after the hurricane last year.

In October last year, McKenzie said that the cost of clearing, patching and repairing some 500 roads in the city that were damaged or blocked would be $730 million. He also said that it would cost an additional $138 million to repair retaining walls and inverts of waterways.