Just over five months after they had complained publicly about bad roads in their parish, residents of Portland are again pleading for the problem to be addressed.

Already grappling with the deplorable state of the roads left in the aftermath of hurricanes Dennis and Wilma in July last year, and years of natural degradation before then, the residents say the recent heavy rains that lashed that section of the island have made the problem worse.

“Driver don’t stop. Driver must stop with our bad road conditions,” read a placard carried by a resident during a demonstration in Buff Bay, Portland on Thursday.

“We want better roads in West Portland!” read another, and “Not even ants can pass,” yet another placard proclaimed.

Additionally, the residents stated, several roadways had been rendered impassable due to flooding and mudslides in Dumfries, Shrewsbury, Newcastle, Claverty Cottage, Cascade and other districts.

“Dumfries is in a critical condition because the road can’t carry no vehicles, neither in or out,” said one resident who gave her name only as Barbara. “I’m a shopkeeper, and I can’t buy goods. When we buy something we have to leave it two miles by Coopers Hill and use bicycle to carry it in, and donkey or on our head.”

The coffee farmers, she added, were unable to get their crop out of the area because of the state of the roads. “So we are in a critical condition and we need help,” she cried.

According to another Dumfries resident, Veronica Williams, who is also president of the Jamaica Agricultural Society (JAS) branch in that area, damage to crops and livestock due to the rains had been extensive.

“Our farms were badly damaged by the rainfall. We had three weeks of severe rainfall. We have lost animals, we have lost crops, [we have had] land slippage in more than one area,” said Williams.

“We have a lot of farms that are down – coffee, banana, some plantain that is washed away. Cows and goats washed away in the rain too.”

She said that attempts to do an assessment of the damage to the numerous farms, and to seek assistance through the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA) had been hindered by the state of the roads.

“I am supposed to do some assessments to take to RADA and the JAS office but I don’t reach up there from last week Wednesday,” said Williams. “I went to market and I could not reach back because of the rain, the blocked roads and all that.”

According to the National Works Agency (NWA), plans are already underway to rehabilitate the roads in Portland.

Stephen Shaw, the NWA’s communications manager, said that two weeks ago six contract packages totalling $400 million were signed for works to be done in 10 parishes, including Portland.

Work will begin, he told the Sunday Observer, as soon as the contractors are ready, and will last approximately four months each. However, Shaw was unable to say which roads in Portland would be rehabilitated under the project.

The other parishes to be included in the project are Clarendon, Manchester, St Elizabeth, St Thomas, St Catherine, St Andrew, St James, Westmoreland and St Mary.

In July, the NWA also announced that roads in Portland were getting attention through the $232-million Retaining Wall Programme and a special programme valued at $100 million. The Sunday Observer was also told that the NWA was carrying out repairs on the road between Fellowship and Bowden Pen at a cost of $30 million, as well as on the Cedar Valley to Cascade route. The newspaper was, however, unable to get an update on these projects.

Last week, Daryl Vaz, Jamaica Labour Party caretaker/candidate for West Portland, chided the authorities for neglecting the parish’s interior roads in favour of the North Coast Highway, which will improve the link between Ocho Rios and Port Antonio.

“You have to look at things in perspective,” said Vaz. “There is no way you can spend on one side for an access road and ignore the plight of the people. It’s hard to justify a highway when the interior roads are so bad.”

However, according to Richard Azan, minister of state in the transport and works ministry, the Government does not have enough money to deal with the problems all at once.

“The truth about it is that you will never have the money to look at all the roads at the same time,” he said. “But we signed the contracts two weeks ago and we are looking at them one at a time.”

He made mention of the $400-million NWA project and corroborated Shaw’s response that plans were underway to repair Portland’s bad roads.

davisv@jamaicaobserver.com