{"id":365,"date":"2017-06-26T18:23:08","date_gmt":"2017-06-26T18:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/westernmirror.com\/?p=365"},"modified":"2017-06-26T18:23:08","modified_gmt":"2017-06-26T18:23:08","slug":"jsif-ms-to-transform-barrett-town","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/?p=365","title":{"rendered":"JSIF $Ms to transform Barrett Town"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clinton Pickering<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Freelance Writer<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Jamaica Social Investment Fund (JSIF) is pouring millions of dollars into a number of projects aimed at transforming the crime-plagued community of Barrett Town in St James<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

So far, JSIF\u2019s commitment to Barrett Town amounts to some $177 million, drawn from a loan facilitated by the World Bank. Having first implemented a zinc fence replacement programme, ground was broken on Friday for the next step, an lntegrated Infrastructural Project of road improvement, concrete channels and drainage.<\/span><\/p>\n

JSIF\u2019s Managing Director, Omar Sweeney, said this aspect of the transformational project programme would see the funds spending $121 million while citizens will provide community support costed at over $8 million.<\/span><\/p>\n

The 2.5 km of roadway to be rehabilitated by contractor Steven Chung of Contracting Enterprise include Rhyne Park Avenue, Vietnam and Saigon Roads, Success, Church, Merv, Jenkins and Chuku Lanes. Concurrently, drainage will be put from Success Farm to Spot Valley Road.<\/span><\/p>\n

In recent times, illegal guns have been barking in Barrett Town, resulting in the army now maintaining daily vigilance in the community and residents having to stay off the streets after 6:00 p.m., out of fear of being attacked by gunmen.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Sweeney felt that the law-abiding citizens were serious about embracing the transformation \u201cdespite some of the negatives that\u2019s been taking place recently,\u201d and gave a commitment that \u201cwe are here to fight that and we\u2019re not going to a very few that have a different initiative.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He said the project was intended to support safety and security and overall improvement of the community and be focusing on, \u201cfirst and foremost, to support the police and other emergency services; ambulance fire, even your own emergency services.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

POLICE FACING CHALLENGES<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

JCF Officer in charge of the Barrett Town Police Station, Inspector Stanley Gordon, welcomed the development.\u00a0 \u201cWhere Barrett Town is coming from, where we are now and where we\u2019re gonna go, with the road improvement, that\u2019s going to lead to success, we\u2019re going to achieve a lot,\u201d he said, while pointing out that the police faced several challenges in the community.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the challenge is that people keep having issues, several issues, so I\u2019m hoping that when this infrastructure is completed, we the community and the police can use it to meet and greet each other because sooner or later, I\u2019m hoping that we can reduce the amount of domestic issues we\u2019re having.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

And delivering the main address, Mayor of Montego Bay, Councillor Homer Davis, also lauded what was being done by JSIF to uplift the community but lamented that because of the crime and violence, on entering the Barrett Town community he had to see armed soldiers on duty.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI can see a makeover in progress, I can see a game changer in progress but what struck me this morning on my way here, as you passed the Barrett Town Police Station, to make the right turn to come up the hill, I thought I was in Saigon, I thought I was in Vietnam ’cause what I saw was members of the Jamaica Defence Force dressed in combat uniform, along with a policeman and what they were doing, they were patrolling a community in Jamaica! And I must be quite honest with you, it makes me very uncomfortable.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clinton Pickering Freelance Writer   The Jamaica Social Investment Fund (JSIF) is pouring millions of dollars into a number of projects aimed at transforming the crime-plagued community of Barrett Town in St James. So far, JSIF\u2019s commitment to Barrett Town amounts to some $177 million, drawn from a loan facilitated by the World Bank. Having […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":364,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[36,35],"class_list":["post-365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-barrett-town","tag-jsif"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=365"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":367,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365\/revisions\/367"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}