LUCEA, Hanover — The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Works Agency (NWA), Everton Hunter says structural weaknesses including poor supervision led to inefficiencies in the implementation of the US$400 million Jamaica Development Infrastructure Programme (JDIP).

According to Hunter who was speaking to Observer West last week following a tour of the parish, said a program of such size and scope should have had a dedicated team of professionals engaged to supervise all work.

“I would have been more comfortable with a much more robust supervisory infrastructure especially when you consider that these projects are spread across the entire length and breadth of the country,” said Hunter.

He claimed there was a lesson to be learnt from the massive road project which was funded by a Chinese loan.

“The lesson there is that if you try to do things on the cheap, it comes back to haunt you,” pointed out Hunter.

Hunter said that going forward, the NWA would “have a dedicated set of persons whose full time job will be to supervise these works. what was done in this case is that we rely on the local parish people who have their normal jobs to do, for them to do their normal job as well as supervise JDIP/JEEP projects which to my mind is not the most efficient arrangement.”

Hunter was responding to complaints recently made by the Councillor for the Riverside division Lester Crooks during a recent parish council meeting.

The latter had questioned the quality of work done by contractors on the Lucea to Glasgow Main Road. Glasgow borders the parishes of Westmoreland and Hanover.

The councillor had suggested that water had begun settling on some sections of the recently completed road.

The $67 million rehabilitation of 12.6km roadway involved the construction of drains, retaining walls and the laying of culverts. Patching, reshaping and overlaying work is also being done on the road.