Highway 2000 to South-East Coast

Dear Editor:

Your article “PM Outlines Plans for South Coast Roadway” published on Thursday, June 16, 2016 states that current administration will not construct the south coast highway as previously planned for south-eastern Jamaica.

It would seem the Government has forgotten that the Logistics Hub facility stretches across four parishes: Clarendon, St. Catherine, Kingston and St. Thomas. In fact, a bunkering and commodity transhipment port is proposed to be built in St. Thomas, and highway 2000 links it with the remaining parts of the hub.

This alone is justification for the project. Or, has this component of the Logistics Hub also been scrapped? I hope not, especially considering that the proposed location of the port at Cow Bay (Old Bowden Wharf), near Yallas, has a naturally deep draught capable of berthing the largest of vessels.

If these plans are still active though, it should be realised that companies are spending billions of dollars to construct facilities in St. Catherine because they are expecting, in the words of Nestle Jamaica’s Country manager Jurg Blaser, “... a logistic footprint closer to the port and the major consumption centre of the corporate area ...”.

If the government is being pressured by tourism interests, it may be wise to consider that the future success of the Logistic Hub Initiative lies in the balance. What we need are policy decisions made in the national rather than sectoral interest. The widened Panama Canal is to be officially inaugurated on Sunday June 26, 2017 and we are ill-prepared for it.

Paul Hay is a Jamaican national, founder of PAUL HAY Capital Projects: a consultancy, based in Kingston Jamaica, with a vision of providing strategic planning and implementation services to organizations for non-residential facilities in the Caribbean.