KINGSTON, Jamaica — The Jamaica Chamber of Commerce (JCC) is calling on the government to provide adequate compensation to businesses which lost revenue due to the ongoing road works in the Corporate Area.

The JCC emphasised that in many instances the disruptions and loss of revenue for businesses resulted from a lack of communication and inadequate planning on the part of the road developers.

 “While we all look forward to a transportation infrastructure that facilitates commerce and the daily requirements of our citizenry, let us not overlook the fact that some businesses were forced to cut back on their opening hours, reduce their employment levels or to even close their doors as they struggled to balance income and operating costs directly attributable to inadequate planning, coordination and poor information-sharing, it cannot simply be chalked up to the inevitable price of progress. There must be restitution for ineptitude,” the JCC insisted in a statement.

According to the JCC, the group has consistently been of the position that most of the disruptions could have been avoided with better planning, better coordination and better communications. The business leader group said it conducted its own survey of affected businesses on Hagley Park and Constant Spring roads some two months ago, and there was an overwhelming assertion that planning and coordination were poor.

Information required to allow businesses to adjust was wholly inadequate, leading to significant commercial losses. “We have also pointed out that throughout much of the period, there has been strong evidence of a lack of coordination and information-sharing between the implementing agencies,” the JCC stated.

“In our more recent interventions, we found an unacceptable number of cases where equipment operators were instructed to work on particular stretches of roadway without being provided with the schematics of water, sewage or telecommunications infrastructure on a timely basis or, in some cases, such schematics were woefully inadequate resulting with work going ahead anyway, often with very damaging consequences,” the business leaders added.