Dear Editor,

By the time this Administration is through, the working class residents of St Catherine will be paupers. For months, we have been suffering under the so-called state of emergency operations with soldiers and police officers subjecting us to traffic snarls and peering into our vehicles as we try to go about our lives.

Our homes have been reduced to mere places to lay our heads at night, as we are forced to leave before daybreak and return after dark just to sleep to fight another day. This cannot be the prime minister’s idea of a crime plan — to turn our parish into Iraq!

The SOE has been extended to October and we await the announcement of a further extension as there’s no way they will allow the boys to come out of hiding just in time for Christmas. That’s right… hiding.

We fool ourselves if we believe they have retired. They are simply lying low until this charade blows over. How many of them have been caught? We listen every day with bated breath and we hear nothing. Unless we really mean to turn St Catherine into the Gaza, this SOE bit is a mere plaster which will get worn at some point and very soon. This is not a sustainable crime plan, sir!

Meanwhile, gas prices are at an all-time high. It’s bad enough we have to suffer and pay for it (inclusive of the 40 per cent tax), but then it’s burnt out rapidly waiting in line for soldiers to give us the go ahead to move. How unfair and inconsiderate is that?!

As a result, we are forced to add toll prices to our gas bill just so we can get to our destinations before lunch time. The driver from Spanish Town to Kingston using the toll roads both ways is paying at minimum $16,000 per month in fees and a minimum $28,000 in gas. I shudder to calculate the cost for those who are journeying from Old Harbour where there have been a proliferation of housing developments in recent years.

And then it gets worse as, by the time we are finished struggling to exit the parish, we are met with road work from all angles across the Corporate Area. By the time we get to Kingston, those residents are up and running and we continue to crawl to schools and offices. And we repeat this in the evening.

I write because no media house is covering our plight. One reporter noted a ‘smooth flow’ in Kingston while I sat in traffic uneasily and just dying to get out and stretch my legs. We are working class people with ambitions of home ownership, buying into St Catherine communities we can afford. But, the government is killing our dream, as they scamper to report so-called reduction in crime and visions of beautiful roads.

Mr Prime Minister, sadly, your vision is our nightmare! Fix it!

Regards,

Ann-Marie Campbell