KINGSTON, Jamaica — Member of Parliament for St Andrew South Western, Angela Brown Burke said some Jamaicans are still unclear of the fire that should ‘spark’ through the Shared Prosperity through Accelerated Improvement to our Road Network (SPARK) programme.

Brown Burke was speaking at the South West SPARK programme consultation meeting in her constituency on Friday. The MP said thus far, it is unknown if the SPARK programme will “flicker and grow or the spark will lead to a big fire.”

“As much as I welcome a programme aimed at dealing with the infrastructure in the community which I think is really needed, I could not speak without mentioning some of my concerns about the SPARK programme and the biggest concern always for me as a representative of the people is that I am not set up with a ‘basket to carry water’. I always want to make sure that is not a basket I have to carry water,” she said as she attempted to elaborate. “What do I mean by that? The approximately $150 million per constituency sounds like a lot of money until you start to break it down and I am hoping that someone along the programme would talk to us a little about cost so people have a realistic expectation as to the kilometres that it can do. For some who might not be able to measure, that you will have a good idea as to how much road that means for persons in South West St Andrew with three divisions. I think that’s going to be important.”

She shared that when meetings discussing the programme are held and the input of community members is solicited, expectations are set high and clear communication is necessary to ensure that persons’ presumptions are realistic.

“When you bring the community together like this and ask persons to talk about the road that they would want to see fixed, you set up this expectation that all of what you come and put on the table and speak about that they will be able to be fixed and if that is not so then somebody must tell us,” she said. “Somebody must make sure that our expectations are realistic.”