KINGSTON, Jamaica — A commissioner of roads is to be appointed to head the still-being-discussed One Road Authority.

Minister with responsibility for Works, Robert Morgan, made the announcement on Wednesday during the post-Cabinet media briefing at Jamaica House. He also disclosed that Cabinet has given instructions for the formation of the authority, which will operate as a level B executive agency.

Morgan explained that the commissioner will have responsibility for regulating all roads. He will have supporting him, “a large cohort of regulatory officers including legal officers”. In this regard, Morgan said that in the future, “if somebody meets in an accident and destroys brand new light poles that we’ve put on the roads and which have cost us billions of dollars, we’re going to claim on their insurance”.

“It cannot be that the taxpayer always gets the short end of the stick when people act recklessly,” he stated.

The works minister noted that it may take a while for Jamaicans to buy into the One Road Authority, especially in light of the present situation where different roads come under the control of different agencies. Currently, farm roads are the domain of the Ministry of Agriculture; municipal corporations have responsibility for parochial roads; toll roads are dealt with by the National Road Operating and Constructing Company; while the National Works Agency is responsible for main roads.

“It’s going to take public education, it’s going to take seeking partnerships with the various stakeholders such as the parish councils and so on, but we’re going to have to do the work to ensure that the One Road Authority is a success,” said Morgan.

“It’s the least we can do in giving people value for the money that they spend for infrastructure,” he said.

Morgan expects that the legislation that will give rise to the One Road Authority will be tabled in Parliament before the end of the financial year.

He stressed that it was urgently needed by pointing to the newly-built South Coast Highway on which aggregate is transported daily from St Thomas to other parishes on trucks that are often overloaded. Morgan said following a visit to St Thomas by himself and the prime minister, they were very concerned at what they saw.

“We recognised that if we do not intervene quickly, that road will not exist in five years based on how it is being used by a lot of the trucks that carry aggregate,” he said.

The minister said the authority will also address the issue of public safety in instances where stones fall off trucks and cause damage to other motor vehicles.

— Lynford Simpson