‘They don’t want to hear the common sense’ solutions – PNP’s Lothan Cousins

This Wednesday (April 27) representatives from National Road Operating and Constructing Company (NROC), China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC), the National Works Agency (NWA), and the Clarendon Municipal Corporation will get a first-hand view of the impact on the affected communities, said Member of Parliament Lothan Cousins.

He was responding to Old Harbour News after some residents shared images of their plight on social media.

A resident from Duke Street, Toll Gate shared pictures with our news team, showing a flooded underpass roadway. Residents in the community say they are unable to get in and out of the area on foot whenever it rains due to persistent flooding at the underpass recently built to facilitate the building of the highway. 

Their concerns have been lodged with the respective state agencies, said Cousins, who informed Old Harbour News that the team will “look at the damage to the road and the flooding and to see how best we can resolve them”.

Residents of Duke Street blame the perpetual flooding on the on-going construction of the May Pen to Williamsfield leg of Highway 2000.

“For sure Duke Street is an area of concern because Duke Street is very low and the highway is very high, and I too have some concerns with the level of the drainage that has been installed in Duke Street,” said the first-time MP. “Last time the rain fell in the space of a few minutes the entire community was almost flooded out.”

Prior to the building of the highway, communities like Duke Street did not experience such frequent flooding, however the present situation is caused by the “inadequacy of the drainages,” Cousins contends.

Cousins, an attorney-at-law, added: “But if you ask the NROCC people and the experts they tell you that it is adequate. They won’t admit that it is inadequate. What they keep saying is a copout, that the project is not complete and that there are going to be additional drainage and that we are a bit premature in our complaints.”

CHEC, has given “firm commitments” that “the Duke Street roads are all scheduled to be repaired,” he said, but cannot give a timeline on the commencement of the project.

Cousins says the main issue isn’t with the Chinese-based global firm but rather the state, as the engineers are guided by what is approved by the Government of Jamaica.

“The China Harbour engineers have said to me that they are not comfortable with the drainage system that they have been given, but they cannot get up and change it, otherwise they will not be paid,” the MP claimed. 

“They (CHEC) are just doing the building [of the highway] and the design was signed off by the government. So if they are to change something in the design there’s a dollar figure to be attached to it.

“We tell them [government] that you have a flat piece of land, the water drains from north to south, and you are running something east to west, so you’re basically building a mountain in the middle of a plain.”

Prior to the construction of the highway, numerous community consultations were had, said Cousins, a member of the opposition People’s National Party, but apparently their demands for adequate drainage were noted but not implemented.

“When we talk [in meetings] they said ‘you a lawyer, weh you know bout engineering?’. They don’t want to hear the common sense [solutions], they don’t want to hear about it. Persons who have lived there for years have explained to them how much water come through and they rubbished it saying they looked at the number of rainfall over x number of years and they factor that into their design.”

According to Cousins NROCC’s counter argument is that the drains in the communities are not being maintained by the local authority – pointing finger at the NWA and the municipal corporation.

Yesterday residents in the York Town Division in the constituency staged a protest over bad roads caused by the construction of the highway in the Foga Road community. They blame NROCC for the poor conditions of the roads.

Representatives for NROCC, which has responsibility for the design, construction, operation and maintenance of Highway 2000, could not be reached for a comment prior to publishing.