by Bennette Roach :
For about a month now as the Movement for Prosperity and Change (MCAP) government completed its fourth year in office quietly, the airwaves of ZJB lit up as Ministers and Parliamentary Secretary have been mandated to appear on radio to speak of their good works for the past four years.
In the meantime, Premier Meade has been speaking out on of construction work availability and projects with a year to General Elections.
As the days, the weeks and the month beginning the year during which the constitutionally due date for general elections approached, Premier the Hon. Reuben Meade has been responding to the call for the creation of jobs.
During the past month he has pronounced on the ongoing infrastructural development works which he said have created a significant number of jobs for many residents, as he referenced the current A1 road works, the Little Bay Development Project and the Lookout school expansion project among others, adding that more jobs were due to come on stream.
ZJB reporters reported him saying: “When you look at the road works you look at what is happening there on Gun Hull; if you go into Little Bay where you’re having four huts being put up for business purposes; when you start adding up the numbers there, looking at the road project in terms of the private sector involved in the ducting work and what’s happening on the Ministry of Agriculture building.”
He spoke about, “the MCRS Building here at Government Headquarters that also will be going out to tender, it’s a design build facility which we find allot more convenient to do because it offers opportunities for a wider range of skill sets to participate in the overall development…””
He spoke of, “…the not too distant future,” which he said will see a continuity of work, such as the primary school development. “All of these have people employed on them,” he said.
During this month the Premier has been pronouncing on the creation of a national health insurance scheme.
Earlier he spoke of the infrastructure development and the laying of ducts to facilitate a fiber optics project. “There is also fiber optics and underground utility services,” he said.
Looking ahead, he said, the fiber optics connectivity is critically important for the future development of Montserrat, “as we look at creating employment in high value areas.”
“High Speed internet will provide for example additional employment opportunities through whatever you can think of whether its education, medication, call centres in the health field, name it, it opens up a wide range of opportunities,” he said, concluding that “putting the ducting in now while you’re doing the main roads means that you don’t have to dig up the roads later on to come and put those in,” which is in fact the reality.