Hanna appeals for help for water-starved constituency

MEMBER OF Parliament for St Ann South Lisa Hanna has called for urgent intervention by the Government to address the dire water need in her constituency which is experiencing severe drought conditions.

“The lack of access to water resources is a life-and-death reality to many rural Jamaicans, not only those living in my constituency. The Government needs to urgently examine rural communities that are without water and make them a priority. This should not be a PNP or JLP prioritisation in which areas are done first,” she appealed in a press release on Tuesday.

Describing the situation as dire, Hanna said she been flooded with calls for help each day, from individuals, farmers and school principals who have run out of water. The fact that most of St Ann South has had very little rainfall since the start of the year is consistent with the weather pattern over the decades, but the last three years have been more extreme and severe, according to Hanna.

The communities most in need of water are McNie, Fort George, Prickly Pole, Nine Miles, Hinds Town, Blackstone Edge and Moneague, and Hanna is calling for the urgent intervention of the Minister of Local Government, Desmond McKenzie, to help supply these and other affected areas in her constituency.

Meanwhile, the outlook for the region for the three-month period February to April by the Caribbean Climate Outlook Forum reads as follows:

“A persistent La Nina pattern is expected to continue during the core of the dry season, which should drive increasing dry spells across the northwest section of the region in addition to the ABC islands and Belize where seasonal rainfall is expected to be the usual or drier. A higher frequency of wet days and wet spells is forecast for the eastern Caribbean where rainfall is expected to be at least as wet as or wetter than the usual, which should taper the chances of wildfire and promote water reservoir capacity. Extreme wet spells for the region are not expected to feature prominently during the upcoming season.”

Miss Hanna contends the situation has been compounded by the failure of the Government to respond adequately in a timely manner to appeals for water storage and distribution systems to be put in place.

“Last year, in the Standing Finance Committee at Parliament, I raised this matter again to the then Minister of Water Aubyn Hill, requesting a status report on several water upgrade projects slated for South East St Ann while also pointing out the fact that J$5 million was a grossly inadequate budget for a national water trucking programme across 63 constituencies when one load of water was costing over $30,000” she lamented.

The member of parliament went further to point out that the current allocations for water supply services under the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development in the 2022-2023 Estimates of Expenditure tabled last week in Parliament do not give much hope.

“The Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development has been allocated J$470,821,000 in recurrent expenditure for water supply services across the island, of which 4.6 per cent or J$20,000,000 is assigned to ‘trucking of water’ and less than half, approximately 46 per cent or J$215,000,000 million, for water resource rehabilitation and maintenance; the rest is going to administration. This budget will not redound to a workable solution for water shortages but will only continue to kick the can down the road for many Jamaicans who need piped water in remote places not only in South East St Ann but across rural Jamaica.”