Government expects work to commence on 401 roads under the Shared Prosperity through Accelerated Improvement to our Road Network (SPARK) Programme by the end of March.

Minister with responsibility for Works, Robert Morgan, made the announcement Wednesday as he provided an update on Government’s ambitious $45 billion programme to rehabilitate more than 600 roads islandwide over two years.

Morgan gave the update during an appearance at the weekly post-Cabinet media briefing at Jamaica House.

He said approximately $4 billion has been spent since work commenced in December 2024 and the government expects to spend an additional $5.2 billion this year. The works minister said the two-year deadline will definitely be impacted by Hurricane Melissa which resulted in works being postponed.

Morgan told the briefing that main contractor China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC) was mobilised to help in the recovery and clean-up activities post-Melissa.

He said since work resumed, CHEC has been instructed to commence work on an additional 132 roads by March, which will put the total at 258. By end of March instructions will be given for work to commence on an additional 143 works, bringing the total to 401.

To date, work is underway on 84 roads which are either completed or under active construction. Fifty-six of the roads have already been paved. Morgan explained that when instructions are issued, the process begins with the design of the road.

“Design means that the contractor has to go on the road, he has to do soil testing; he has to look at the topography and the hydrology of the road. Then he has to go back to the lab and get those results, then he has to send them to the consultant to say this is the quality of the soil, this is the type of environment…,” Morgan explained.

He said most roads in Jamaica were never designed in the first place; they evolved from community lanes where people lived

“What SPARK is doing is looking at these roads and saying what is the best design we can implement on these roads to make them more efficient and more usable,” he stated. This, Morgan noted, includes the installation of drains.

On average, a SPARK road takes between two and three months to complete but, based on challenges, some do take longer.

Harbour Heights in East Kingston and Port Royal took nearly a year as, after worked commenced, it was discovered that an old asbestos pipe needed to be replaced. Additionally, retaining walls had to be installed after houses on the hillside had become unstable.

Morgan said the SPARK standard is a significantly higher standard as is evident in the cost to complete a road under the programme.

“Traditionally, we would spend $20 million per kilometre on a road [but] under SPARK it is $40 million to $45 million…,” he said.

Expressing doubt about whether Jamaicans will give credit to the Government, Morgan said “No government in the history of Jamaica has ever started 401 roads over this short period of time”.

He said the work will ramp up further in the summer when the main road component of the SPARK that will rehabilitate 63 roads across the country gets going.

-Lynford Simpson