Prime Minister Andrew Holness on Tuesday (July 23) outlined the massive investment his administration would be making to improve public infrastructure in the nation’s former capital, Spanish Town.
Speaking at the contract signing for the new St.Catherine Divisional headquarters, Holness described the infrastructural improvements as critical to his overall vision for the town, which he said had been over run by criminal gangs.
Borrowing heavily from the population-centric counterinsurgency approach, Holness impressed upon his audience the need for an improved physical environment coupled with community-policing to rid Spanish Town of its deeply entrenched gangs, which he noted had been stifling its potential for massive growth.
“I am from Spanish Town, I was born in Spanish Town, I love Spanish Town, it is a place of such great history and potential, it pains my heart to see the building deteriorating, and the Georgian buildings just disappearing. So much history and culture there that could be made of value. But the town historically, for a long time, has been overrun,taken over by criminal gangs that are really strangling the town for its true potential,” said Holness.
“For us to take back the town, the JCF will be an important element of that strategy. But it is not the criminals that we need to get out of the town, more so it is the people we need to get on the side of the police, because the criminals have interwoven themself into the fabric, that they have protection and safe haven. But if we can get the people there to see that the police will guarantee their safety and their security, that the police is their friend, that the police will create an environment where everybody can thrive, then that fabric will unravel and the gangs won’t feel safe there. So we have to build the relationship with communities and the first thing you want to do is to provide the people with the necessary public services, so that they feel apart of the state. And that is why we have made this massive investment in literally building a new Spanish Town hospital, I mean we’re putting up a new wing, but it is literally almost a new hospital. Then we’re going to do the police station,” he added.
Holness explained that even with the area in its current condition, Spanish Town was attracting forward thinking investors, adding that reducing crime in the area would bring even further growth.
“Those who have a keen eye see what is going to happen to Spanish Town, 520,000 persons live in St Catherine, that’s the second largest concentration of the population, so even if we were to get a 20 percent reduction in murders and we sustain that for the next five years and we eliminated the gang you would see Spanish Town go through a growth phase that previously, you would consider unimaginable, and that is what we are going to do , strategically we are going to retake Spanish Town from the criminals,” said Holness.
Why Not Save the Rhetoric for the Ground Breaking ?
Holness also used the occasion to explain why he was speaking at a contract signing and not a groundbreaking event.
According to Holness, increasingly Jamaicans are failing to make the link between various projects and the actions of the government, noting that often no credit is given for such efforts.
“It may be a question in the minds of some, why are we then making a ceremony of a contract signing? When we are certain that we will also make a ceremony of the groundbreaking and yes, we will make a ceremony of the opening,” began Holness.
“It is important because either deliberately or just by the lack of knowledge, there would seem to be a disconnect between projects that are developed, projects that are implemented, projects that are completed, projects that are benefiting the country and the acts of the government. In other words, when the government does something good there is no credit,” Holness added.
