McKenzie pushes back on councillors over drain and road funding

Local Government Minister Desmond McKenzie has answered councillors and other local representatives who have questioned the Government's handling of drain cleaning and road repairs.

Addressing a grant handover for cleanup and restoration initiatives in St. James on Friday, McKenzie said some of the criticism levelled at the administration is politically motivated rather than grounded in how funding actually works.

He explained that parish councils controlled by either the People's National Party or the Jamaica Labour Party receive central allocations on a roughly monthly basis. The Ministry of Finance releases between J$600 million and J$700 million each month, and the sums are divided according to the number of roads in each parish—not by the minister's personal discretion.

McKenzie challenged the suggestion that local authorities already hold enough money to carry out road fixes. "When they tell you that they do have money to fix roads, not true," he said.

The minister also pointed out that municipal bodies raise their own revenue to support service delivery in towns and cities across the island.

He said that over the past year alone, local authorities in Jamaica approved plans totalling more than J$64.5 billion, reflecting revenue that entered those bodies.