An October media report pointed to the signing ceremony for a consultancy linked to a US$800-million ($123-billion) contract for roadwork, including the Montego Bay perimeter strip. Finance and the Public Service Minister Nigel Clarke signed for Jamaica and Managing Director Makhtar Diop for the International Finance Corporation. A major deficit in that contract itself is the omission of even a trickle for the ‘tender care’ of rural or ‘country’ roads.

Even $1 billion would exceed by just about a half the $670 million earmarked for farm roads in 2022-2023. Many rural roads have been in dire need of maintenance and even reconstruction and, whereas urban centres witnessed pre-Christmas patching, bushing would have been generally the best anticipated rural seasonal benefit.

People who were not at the Jamaica Labour Party’s (JLP) annual conference in November learnt, via newspapers, radio, television and online sources, of Prime Minister Andrew Holness’s plan to “make the allocations in this budget and in the budget to come” for “repairs and improvements to local and secondary roads, as far as we can”. Using the statement to launch into the TVJ All Angles discussion on November 24, host Dionne Jackson-Miller added her own plug: “Now, we all want better roads, but why have so many of our road improvement programmes been chaotic, causing misery and inconvenience to thousands of motorists and residents? Think, most recently, St Thomas.”

Largely, motorists and residents using rural roads do not have misery and inconvenience associated with road improvement programmes; they need road improvement programmes.

Whereas the in-studio trio of Jackson-Miller and guest engineers Drs Carlton Hay and Wayne Reid addressed arterial road network programmes, several of the points that they and recorded vox pop contributors raised had wider implications.

Also in studio was the National Works Agency’s (NWA) communication and customer service manager, Stephen Shaw, who was kept on the defensive when facing insistent references to umbrella issues such as poor planning, deficient timetabling, inappropriate technical staffing, and disregard for the travelling public as well as concrete issues including drainage, dust nuisance, surface quality, lanes, and sidewalks.

Rural folk have generally not minced words when expressing their plight, often in variants of our rich Jamaican language. Recent prime time TV reports, in October for example, have had a few choice offerings: “Yuh have to walk wid yuh shoes an yuh slippaz inna yuh han becaaz yuh cyaan wear yuh nice shoes inna di mud.”

“Front-end parts lick out and rotten out.”

“People ask if yuh go a country last night an yuh jus tell dem, yes.”

In another report, one man was direct, first on self-help, and then what government ought to do: “Mi cyaan buy mi food…Fix di road. Clean di drain.”

Later reports, in November for example, sustained the theme. Residents of Penlyne Castle were those struggling: “If wi jus have one day heavy rain we jus cyaan go out.”

“Every week wi have to buy parts.”

“Some ah di time di donkey all fall dung.”

“It’s only God who takes us back and forth.”

“Di only time dem [politicians] come is when dem need a few vote.”

In the area, journalist Giovanni Dennis took viewers on a perilous section of a market truck’s night journey, noting that “[A]t one location, all except the driver exited the truck” for safety reasons. The voices and evidence on the ground speak volumes underlining the nature of rural poverty and partly illustrating what sociologists lean on to distinguish between such poverty and its urban counterpart.

Arguably, ‘grounded’ rural residents who are not drawn by the urbanisation or migration push-pull dynamics causing them to relocate to areas with better roads or greener pastures with basic infrastructure, including roads. But occasionally patience snaps, and disgust sometimes boils over, resulting in street protests with felled trees and other objects reinforcing roadblocks. The implications for freedom of movement, law and order and the natural environment suggest ‘bad news’, but as residents seem to feel, roadblocks attract media and official attention as well as the ‘good news’ of actual or potential improvements sooner rather than much later.

The proximity of a significant response and media announcement is notable: “Hours before the contract was signed, people in communities along the heavily used road between Friendship and Hurlock/John’s Hall in St James blocked the thoroughfare and vented frustration about the length of time it is taking to fix the road.”

The threat of renewed citizen protests remained in December. ‘Councillor begs motorists not to block road’ was the headline for Jamaica Observer Reporter Rochelle Clayton’s page 24 story on December 4. Uvel Graham, the JLP’s councillor for the Spring Mount Division, explained that funding was in place but that the start of work had to await certain preparations. One taxi operator cited in the story inserted “When I see it I will believe it,” and added that he hoped that the work would be done properly. Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett, Member of Parliament (MP), according to the report, stated that the Tourism Enhancement Fund had allocated $100 million — more than a half of the project funding.

National media drew from the prime minister’s comments on St Thomas in November and St James in October. In St James, the October 25 Observer report had a telling piece: “I want every Jamaican citizen to [know] that I understand your frustration with…bad roads… I have been noticing…an increase in the number of demonstrations and protests,” which is “part of our democracy” and “I don’t want my Jamaican brothers and sisters to feel that they are out there in the rural parts of the country and the Government doesn’t pay attention to them…”

What’s more, Opposition MPs have also tuned in on the ‘bad roads’ discussion from different standpoints.

Roads that saw the yellow Public Works Department (PWD) trucks and old-time technology, or “less costly and more labour-intensive marl/crushed limestone roads” (to cite a 1980 Agency for International Development impact report on a 1970s feeder roads project), largely offered a more satisfactory experience for drivers as well as pedestrians — including the writer who walked barefooted to primary school and on errands — than many that do not even attract protests today. Losing a toenail or bruising a knee here and there in old times contrasts with damage to large expensive front-end and other motor vehicle parts in decade three of the 21st century.

Whereas I expect much information from the media, I value interpersonal channels highly. There is no exception when visiting rural districts. So, one approach is to ask at a strategic intersection, say, Tavern Hill/Guy’s Hill, where St Ann, St Catherine and St Mary meet, whether “dem start any work roun deh soh yet”? The usual answer is “no”, followed by “tank yuh”, and resumption of the journey via an arbitrarily selected route.

Yet complaints about the poor condition of many rural roads need to be put into perspective. On leaving the bumps of districts in rural St Mary after events in the Emancipation/Independence period this year it was agreed — following my feel for adventure — to return home via Portland and St Thomas, rather than repeat the Junction Road. Thankfully, solid meals at Port Antonio helped to cushion the hours-long perpetual struggle of car and personnel versus road, give and take momentary relief here and there. As the Agency for Public Information’s/Jamaica Information Service’s information officer for the Ministry of Works and Communication or Local Government nearly five decades ago I drove that journey in less than a third of the time taken on that 2022 expedition.

At Port Antonio, on December 18, even with two fellow travellers destined for St Thomas, my tentative inclination to travel eastward to return home after inquiring about the state of progress was at best unpopular.

Major roads then are another issue. Also, evident seasonal rain damage and the much-publicised tight post-pandemic fiscal space have been complicated by oil price issues partly linked to a persisting northern war and geopolitically-influenced sidelining of our oil-rich Venezuelan friends.

On the other hand, there might be thinking of the sort raised by Dr Reid in his opening comment on All Angles. He saw two main problems; the first being inadequate planning. The next “is a level of contempt for the travelling public, the pedestrians, the Jamaican public at large, You’re going to get a road in the end, so what yuh mekin noise bout — a pothole here, a block road there, and a ditch in di road. Don’t worry. Wi soon finish; might be not dis year, might be di next year, or di following year, but it goin finish…”

Other strands of thinking might be represented in, “Dem fix di road so people can come tief yuh goat.” Though, deficient and disrespectful of rural residents as it is, it could derive strange support from at least one 2022 incident: “Media and interpersonal sources revealed that police finally cornered a runaway cabbie and probably saved his clutch of screaming passengers in a bumpy stretch of the ‘country’ section of Manning’s Hill Road between Smokey Vale and Guava Gap in St Andrew.

So, are bad or rough roads good? The police’s success at Manning’s Hill Road was not about preventing the theft of goats, but rather another positive — maintaining law and order and probably saving lives! Somewhat in terms of the converse, there were media reports of the shooting death of a pre-teen lad when the vehicle in which he was travelling hit a rough patch at Tucker in St James early in 2022; the relevant court case remained unresolved at least to November news.

We could generally agree that bad roads are not good for the economy, maintenance of motor vehicles (which Jamaica does not produce), and, of course, the human body.

Our media institutions and professionals are — or should be — notable for at least three qualities. First, they are not in the fake news or alternative facts business. Second, in part they are in the day-to-day business of informing and educating our people to enhance ability to participate effectively in our democracy. Third, they tend to be proactive in helping to keep the Government and particular others on their toes – to draw on a theme reiterated by the Press Association of Jamaica President Milton Walker, who expressed the need for journalistic freedom when speaking on the November 29 edition of TVJ‘s prime time news in response to reports of attacks on a TV cameraman and a Gleaner reporter at a Spanish Town primary school.

Keeping the relevant public servants on their toes when linked to rural road improvements reflects potentially at least three elements — good work by media and individual professionals; the related good (news) stories; and good work by political representatives – all music to the ears of rural and Jamaica beneficiaries.

Let rural, especially those that do not intend to resettle in good-road centres, and other folk hear more of a certain theme: “Work has been started on the road from this village to that… although hampered by frequent showers… The Government has resurfaced…of the roads it listed for improvement by Jamaica’s 61st, despite persistent high fuel and other imported material costs the Works Agency says District B will have a smooth drive this Christmas or early in 2023. Residents in villages A and C can now breathe a sigh of relief following the resurfacing project. Rehabilitation work on bridges in parishes E, F, G and K is progressing more rapidly than planned. Farmers are now riding high after the opening of link road C. Transport operators anticipate lower vehicle maintenance and fuel costs following completion of the bridge across River C. Minister X has cut the ribbon… Disgruntled MPs will receive increased allocations for work on rural roads…”

The joy bells would ring with more of those lines or tunes. So, joy – I would think – came not only to a farmer of Wilderness district near Mile Gully in Manchester: “Mi nah buck me toe again; it is a joy [because]…[m]ore time the donkey turn over so this is well needed and welcomed.” The joy would have been felt beyond those residents and political officials headed by Agriculture Minister Pearnel Charles Jr and MP Mikael Phillips present at the walkabout and ribbon-cutting ceremony as well as others who might have viewed the headline: ‘Opposition MP tells constituents to maintain new road’ (Observer, December 21, 2022). Pictures too tell stories. One Observer frame showed a section of road with a parked car — evidence of vehicle-friendliness — and the other, more than a smile for candid camera at the ribbon-cutting ceremony. The single frame with the JIS story, ‘Grass Piece and Back Street farm roads in Manchester rehabilitated’, on a later page, had MP and minister in strolling form and apparently sharing a ‘comradely’ moment, separated by several metres from the trailing throng of observers.

Any journalistic compromise in fairness, balance, or objectivity linked to the presentation of ‘good road stories’ need not be more than negligible at worst, and even this could be neutralised by the positive impact of overflowing good news inscribed in asphalt or stone and concrete mix.

Good rural or ‘country’ roads maintained in a timely fashion are not only about development generally, but also, more specifically, about fellow Jamaicans’ quality of life, and the frequently mentioned food security. Following the ‘good’ and mindful of the operative word ‘feeder’ in ‘feeder roads’, for example, we might not then be biting the hands that feed us.