NWA, NWC IN ROAD REPAIR PACT

The repair and maintenance of a number of roadways across Jamaica will soon benefit from an agreement signed recently between the National Water Commission (NWC) and the National Works Agency (NWA) for the permanent re-instatement of roadways.

Under this new contract, the NWA will undertake all permanent re-instatement of those roads affected by emergency excavation activities by the NWC. The NWC remains responsible for initial temporary re-instatement work, but thereafter the NWA will be responsible to affect final re-instatement by using funds put aside in a special account established by the National Water Commission. The agreement is to last for two years and is applicable to all roads for which the NWA has responsibility.

NWC President E. G Hunter commented that the move is a welcome one and that motorists and the general public should see improved road surfaces as a result. He highlighted the fact that the arrangements under which the Commission previously utilised the services of individual contractors to carry out road reinstatement across the island had often been unreliable. With this new arrangement, repairs to roads occasioned by the NWC's  fixing of  water pipes and sewage mains will be undertaken by the National Works Agency.

A previous arrangement for road re-instatement had been signed between the NWC and the Ministry of Transport and Works in 1999, before the NWA was formed as an executive agency.