LITTLE LONDON, Westmoreland – Member of Parliament for Westmoreland Western Morland Wilson is fuming that the price tag to fix a stretch of road in his constituency has increased by more than 200 per cent after almost two years of waiting for the finance ministry’s approval.

He has been trying to get repairs done to the heavily travelled Glasgow to Grange Hill thoroughfare. Glasgow is on the border of Hanover and Westmoreland while Grange Hill is in Westmoreland.

“We are now being told that it is in procurement and it has been in procurement for the past year-and-a-half, which is unacceptable,” the MP, who was elected on a governing Jamaica Labour Party ticket, told the Jamaica Observer.

He added that after he asked the minister with oversight for works, Everald Warmington, to repair the road, the National Works Agency estimated that the project would cost $20 million to $30 million in 2021. During a visit this April, he learned of the new price tag, he said.

“We are looking at close to $100 million because the small potholes continued to expand,” Morland explained to Observer West. “My frustration is if it had gone through procurement and was awarded, even if the road got bad again because of usage and wear and tear, we would not be looking at such a high figure.”

There appears to be no dispute that repairs are needed. During a recent tour of roads in Westmoreland, Warmington promised that the Glasgow to Grange Hill Road would be the next big project undertaken.

“That one needs it badly,” the minister noted then.

But according to Wilson, there are other projects that have been similarly impacted because of red tape.

He pointed to the Grange Hill to Savanna-la-Mar route in neighbouring Westmoreland Central which also has an impact on his constituency. The MP said that project took almost a year to be awarded which resulted in the need for an upward adjustment in the price.

“The contractor came and said, ‘When I had done it nine months ago prices were this and now it has gone up and we cannot do it for that anymore’. And when I turn to the NWA they are saying that the process will have to start all over, which is another nine months,” said an obviously frustrated Morland.

The first-term MP, who was voted into office during the general election in 2020, said he is now being lambasted by constituents who are losing faith in his ability to have the road repaired.

He noted that while other elected officials are having similar challenges, “the problem with me as a new MP is that people are expecting results. The problem I have is that while I made representation to the minister and the minister obliged by allocating the funds, it makes no difference because it still ends up as nought.”

Wilson said the Ministry of Finance and Public Service’s Office of Public Procurement Policy has cited the COVID-19 pandemic among the reasons for the delays. While he made it clear that he has no issue with the “excellent” rules that govern the procurement process, he does have a problem with its systemic inefficiencies.

“It works in several other countries across the globe but yet can’t work in Jamaica. In other countries, [the road] would get bad and in two to three weeks things are procured,” argued the MP.

Even as he expressed the hope that his comments are not taken “the wrong way”, he stressed that “something needs to be done about procurement”.

Wilson did not have a long list of suggestions on how to fix the problem but he did mention one. He wants the Office of Public Procurement Policy removed from within the finance ministry and placed within the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation inside the Office of the Prime Minister.

Under the Financial Administration and Audit Act (FAA), public procurement falls under the purview of the finance minister who has direct responsibility for public expenditure and public financial management.

According to the finance ministry’s website, “Acting under powers granted by the Public Procurement Act, 2015 and its attendant Regulations, the Minister of Finance’s fiscal and economic policy imperatives are pursued in part through the work of a robust procurement policy.”

But there are often called for a better balance between prudence and speed; and the issue of red tape’s negative impact on people’s lives has long been a bane for successive governments of Jamaica. During a recent address in Westmoreland where he flayed the local authorities for taking five years to build a male ward at the infirmary, Prime Minister Andrew Holness expressed the wish that red tape would be one of the shackles removed when Jamaica becomes a republic.