Two Government parliamentarians went on a tour of hilly, remote communities in St Thomas Western on Wednesday and received an earful from residents who said they have been neglected by their political representatives for many years.

Their complaints were mostly about a lack of proper roads and bridges that connect communities as well as running water.

The tour by St Thomas Western Member of Parliament James Robertson and minister without portfolio in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation Everald Warmington encompassed Mount Vernon Gap, Richmond Gap, Ramble, and Easington.

As Robertson promised a group of people that money will be sourced to fix roads in Richmond Gap, one elderly man, said, “What about the water? We need a catchment up by White River.”

An elderly woman chimed in, reiterating that they “have no water in the community. We have to run water from inna bush come right down”.

In Mount Vernon Gap, the residents of that farming community were livid that after three years a major road breakaway has received no serious attention from the authorities.

That breakaway, they said, has inconvenienced them greatly, forcing them to walk long distances up and downhill because no taxis want to chance going across the breakaway. Shop operators have difficulty transporting goods while farmers wanting to take their produce to market face a similar problem.

Mount Vernon Gap residents also complained about a decades-old water problem.

“Can you imagine, the people dem stay a foreign and a try fi build up the community and dem can’t come come a dem yard because there is no road,” 76-year-old Gladstone Grant lamented.

“My nephew get miserable. Him regret the money weh him spend to try and develop the community and then there is no road and no water,” he added.

Senior citizen Blossom Patterson said the water woes have persisted for 30 years.

“We haffi buy water. We nuh have no water and the road bruk weh three years now. House wash weh from deh so gone a gully and nobody nuh come look pon we. No vehicle nah pass yah so, dem fraid fi drop over,” Grant added.

In response to the residents’ cries, Warmington said he couldn’t identify which project would receive priority attention, but gave an assurance that teams will be sent out to assess and price the various projects.

At the same time, he said that Jamaicans need to reconsider where they choose to live.

“Most of the roads in this constituency will need a whole lot of funds to address the situation. Most of the roads are in very bad condition and I don’t believe the regular budgetary allocation will be able to address most of what I have seen,” Warmington said.

“Most of what I have seen will have to be done under special projects. We looked at the Easington Bridge where there is a breakaway; the Llandewey Bridge that is collapsing, there is a contract out for $51 million and that will start very shortly,” he said.

“Mount Vernon Gap is where there there is a huge breakaway. Between West St Thomas and East Rural St Andrew, there are six such breakaways. I gave instructions to have them scoped and designed. Three designs were completed by the end of October and we are looking to complete the others. We are looking at cutting down part of the embankment in Mount Vernon Gap to widen that road to make it easier for vehicular traffic to traverse. You have to be a good driver to get past that breakaway. We have to ensure that people have a wider space to to get our their goods.”

“Jamaica needs to have discussions and think where we live. There is need for infrastructure in some very remote areas but in some of these communities, very few people live in them,” Warmington said, then asked, “Is it necessary to spend billions of dollars to put in roads and infrastructure in these communities, or is it best to relocate the people from these areas; or is it wise to build bridges for two or three families to go across a river or should we think of relocating these people?”