The brouhaha over the paternity of the north-south leg of Highway 2000 and the Government’s decision to name it in honour of former Prime Minister Edward Seaga is unnecessary and unfortunate.

A modern highway to link the north and south coasts has been under consideration from the 1960s. Several studies were done by the Public Works Department but because of the engineering challenges, resultant high costs and the limited traffic volume, it was repeatedly assessed to be unfeasible.

The Highway 2000 project was conceived in the late 1990s during the Administration of former Prime Minister PJ Patterson. It was to be developed as a public-private partnership between the Jamaican Government and Bouygues Construction of France and executed in four phases:

Phase 1A: Caymanas (St Catherine) to Sandy Bay (Clarendon) with a link from the Portmore Causeway to Caymanas;

Phase 1B: Sandy Bay (Clarendon) to Williamsfield (Manchester);

Phase 2A: Bushy Park (St Catherine) to Ocho Rios (St Ann);

Phase 2B: Williamsfield (Manchester) to Montego Bay (St James).

Phase 1A was completed between 2004 (Caymanas to Sandy Bay) and 2006 (Portmore Causeway to Caymanas). The Mt Rosser Bypass from Linstead to Moneague, which was to be a part of Phase 2A, was started in 2007 during the Administration of former Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller. A portion of Phase 1B from Sandy Bay to May Pen was started during the JLP Administration of 2007-2011 and completed in 2012 shortly after it left office.

Gigantic problems

During my time in office we faced two gigantic problems with the Highway 2000 project. Firstly, the financing arrangement negotiated with Bouygues placed a huge burden on the Jamaican Government. Through the National Road Operating and Constructing Company, the Government currently has outstanding loans of $95 billion with an accumulated deficit in interest costs of $66 billion, and it is still years away from receiving any of the proceeds of the tolls collected since under the concession agreement — all the revenues go to Bouygues until their loans have been repaid. That financing model could not be continued for the remaining segments.

Secondly, the Mt Rosser Bypass ran into a major geotechnical disaster due to faulty engineering design and the indecent haste to start the construction two months before the 2007 election. After considerable expenditure, including US$120 million provided by the Jamaican Government, Bouygues abandoned the project and it seemed destined to become a colossal white elephant.

Visit of Xi Jinping

In February 2009, China’s then Vice-President (now President) Xi Jinping paid an official visit to Jamaica. By that time, China had already provided US$75 million in loan financing for Trelawny Stadium and Montego Bay Convention Centre. My discussions with Vice-President Xi during his visit paved the way for two major projects — the Palisadoes shoreline and the Jamaica Development Infrastructure Programme. These were to be financed largely by US$400 million in loans from China and carried out by China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC), a company owned by the Government of China and the largest infrastructure company in China.

In January 2010 I paid an official visit to China, in the course of which I held separate discussions with Premier Wen Jiabao, Vice-President Xi and President Hu Jintao. The possibility of securing additional loans from China was virtually unlimited but I explained that Jamaica’s high level of indebtedness and, more specifically, the debt ceilings contained in the standby agreement that we were about to sign with the International Monetary Fund severely restricted our ability to borrow, and we were more interested in identifying investment projects in Jamaica in which China would be prepared to be engaged.

The whole thrust of that visit was to move Jamaica-China cooperation to a new level of partnership through investment, rather than loans. I also met with the China EX-IM Bank and the China Development Bank whose chairman, I recall, remarked amusingly that its assets were two and a half times those of the World Bank. We discussed a strategy where they would consider providing financing to Chinese companies to undertake investments in Jamaica, and major infrastructure projects were identified as a priority.

The divestment to a Chinese company, Complant, of the Government’s huge, loss-making sugar entities was an important outcome of that visit. In subsequent years China has become a major source of foreign direct investment in Jamaica.

Negotiations with CHEC

Minister Mike Henry, who had accompanied me to China, entered into discussions with CHEC about completing the north-south highway, including the aborted Mt Rosser Bypass. I made it clear to Mike that any arrangement arrived at could not involve any cash outlay by the Government other than what may be needed to purchase privately owned lands that would be required for the highway — much of the lands along the planned route was already owned by the Government.

To his credit, Mike Henry negotiated an arrangement under which CHEC would undertake the project (starting at Caymanas instead of Bushy Park), including the reengineering and completion of the Mt Rosser Bypass. Importantly, CHEC would reimburse the Government of Jamaica, upfront, the US$120 million that it had already spent on that portion. CHEC would be responsible for building, operating and maintaining the highway as a toll road for 50 years, at which time ownership and responsibility would be handed over to the Government.

The estimated cost was in excess of US$700 million, inclusive of the reimbursement for the Mt Rosser Bypass. The projected traffic flow and toll revenue could not support this level of investment. Small countries like Jamaica are at a disadvantage in building major highways. An identical project carried out at the same cost in Texas or Brazil, where it can reckon on a toll-paying traffic count of 150,000 vehicles per day instead of 20,000, would face no such problem. In the case of the north-south highway, creative ways had to be found to make the project viable. It was eventually agreed that the Government would transfer some 1,200 acres of land along the corridor to CHEC, which would develop these lands into commercial centres, housing schemes and hotel properties to enhance its cost recovery.

Win-win formula

This seemed to the Government to be a win-win formula. These lands, which have long remained idle, would be put to economic use. they would attract significant job-creating investments which CHEC would be obliged, in its own interest, to undertake in order to recover the money it would be investing in the highway, and the north-south link we have long dreamed of would become a reality. The Government of Jamaica would not have to bear any financial burden for the project.

Those who have objected to this arrangement would have to be content to have the lands remain in ruinate for another 50 years and contend with the hazards of the Bog Walk gorge and the twists and turns and disabled trailers on Mount Diablo.

The Government entered into a framework agreement with CHEC in May 2011 and Cabinet approved an implementation agreement in November 2011. The Simpson Miller Administration, which came to office in January 2012, followed through diligently on these arrangements and CHEC commenced work on the project in December 2012. The highway was completed and officially opened by Prime Minister Andrew Holness in March 2016.

It is said that success has many fathers but failure is an orphan. The north-south highway is one such success.

We may yet have to consider a similarly creative approach to deal with the remainder of the Highway 2000 project, especially Phase 2B (Williamsfield to Montego Bay) as, up to the last data that I saw, the financial viability based on projected traffic volumes was under water.

Honouring Edward Seaga

No one should begrudge former Prime Minster Edward Seaga the honour of the north-south highway bearing his name purely because he may not have been involved in conceptualising or executing it. Only the most partisan of partisans could dispute his outstanding contribution to Jamaica’s development. No one would ever dare question the appropriateness of the Palisadoes Airport being renamed in 1969 in honour of National Hero Norman Manley, although he had nothing directly to do with its establishment in 1948.

— Bruce Golding is a former prime minister of Jamaica