THE EDITOR, Sir:
THE MAIN commentary in the June 10, Sunday Gleaner addressed a major ongoing concern in Jamaica: namely the need for effective
timely repair of the island's roadways. Although timely in its essence, the commentary stopped short of addressing a significant cause of Jamaica's deteriorating road conditions, namely the lack of a fiscally and administratively empowered system of local Government: one specialised
in delivering timely infra-structure maintenance services
to the island's many affected communities.
Jamaica's dilemma of poor infrastructure is to a significant degree the result of what is in essence a local government system centered not with grassroots decision-makers but decision-makers centralised in "distant" national statutory agencies and ministerial bureaucracies. Highly centralised fund sources tend to lengthen the islandwide maintenance timeline for infrastructural repair in a
manner that drives up the overall repair costs (given the "time value principle of money" which states the cost rises significantly with the passage of time) and precipitates higher taxes on the part of Jamaica's already burdened grassroots taxpayers. A more effective administrative approach would be to decentralise the maintenance responsibilities of the island's national statutory infrastructure repair agencies centered in Kingston towards a system of fiscally empowered and functionally specialised regional county councils: ones proactively controlled by the grassroots constituents.
Positive change in Jamaica's crumbling infrastructure is not only a function of a lack of funds. This point is seen in wealthy countries such as the US and England which also lack sufficient funds to properly maintain all their respective public transportation infrastructure. However what the US and England have discovered is that greater spatial administrative articulation via appropriate forms of spatial administrative decentralisation, does accrue the critical benefit of heightened spatial responsiveness, sensitivity and accountability to the grassroots service delivery needs: a critical outcome for
success in national development.
I am, etc.,
GARFIELD WHITTAKER
garfield.whittaker@csun.edu
Department of Geography
California State University,
Via Go-Jamaica
