KINGSTON, Jamaica — A sharp political clash has erupted over municipal road maintenance funding in Jamaica’s capital region, with a senior cabinet minister calling out the head of the Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation (KSAMC) for longstanding hypocrisy in his complaints about resource shortages.
Robert Morgan, Minister without Portfolio with responsibility for Works, has publicly pushed back against KSAMC Chairman Andrew Swaby following the body’s recent announcement of a hike in annual divisional allocation funds. Under the new adjustment, urban divisions will see their allocations rise from the previous $10 million to $13 million, while rural divisions within the KSAMC’s jurisdiction will receive $13.5 million, a notable increase from prior levels.
In an official statement released this week, Morgan argued that this very funding adjustment lays bare the contradiction at the heart of Swaby’s repeated public grievances. For months, the mayor has centered his public messaging on blaming insufficient funding for the poor state of parish-managed roads, but Morgan points out that the KSAMC has long held the legal authority to increase these allocations on its own.
“The mayor cannot continue to lament the condition of roads while failing to fully use the resources and authority available to the KSAMC,” Morgan stated in his remarks. “This recent increase confirms that the corporation can do more for parish council roads, drains, mitigation works and emergency interventions. He has more money at his disposal than his predecessor ever did, yet he has failed to deliver on the key commitments he made to voters before taking office as Mayor.”
Morgan also highlighted a longstanding imbalance in responsibility for road repairs, noting that the central government-run National Works Agency (NWA) has been forced to carry a disproportionate share of the workload fixing roads that officially fall under municipal oversight.
While the Jamaican central government remains open to collaborative work with the KSAMC to improve infrastructure for local residents, Morgan emphasized that collaboration cannot require the national government to absorb all the cost while municipal resources go underutilized. “The KSAMC must use its increased allocations to repair and maintain the roads under its control,” he said. “That is core to their mandate.”
Morgan further pointed to a key historical context that undercuts Swaby’s position: back in 2020, when Swaby served as a local councillor before becoming mayor, he seconded a formal resolution calling for exactly this kind of increase in divisional allocations from the Parochial Revenue Fund, to specifically fund road and drain upgrades.
“He understood the importance of higher divisional allocations then. The question is why it has taken this long for the same urgency to be reflected in the Corporation’s own decisions,” Morgan added.
To address growing public confusion, Morgan is also calling for full transparency from the KSAMC around how municipal road funds have been spent to date. Residents across Kingston and St Andrew have a right to clear information on which projects are prioritized, how allocations are distributed, and when scheduled repair works will be completed, he argued. “No one knows how these funds are spent right now. Jamaicans deserve to know,” Morgan said.