Everton Hunter, chief executive of the National Works Agency (NWA), says approximately J$6 million has been allocated from the Government to remove debris in the Sandy Gully area in St Andrew.

Hunter says cleaning activities are expected to commence this week.

“There has been an accumulation of detritus material in the Sandy Gully over the years. We went to tender to have public interest for someone to spend their money taking out the material and using the material because there is some value to the material. In the last four years, we did try on two occasions to see if we could get some public interest in undertaking that. Regrettably, we didn’t get any; we tried that again, but in addition to that, we are going to be spending $6 million to undertake some cleaning ourselves. That will be in the vicinity of the two bridges; there is a bridge on Spanish Town Road over the gully, and there is a bridge on Washington Boulevard over the gully, and we have a special interest in preserving the bridges,” Hunter said.

Meanwhile, the CEO said the total cost would be tremendous to clean the Sandy Gully in the manner the agency would like.

He was speaking at a post-Cabinet press briefing on Wednesday (June 12).

With the country now in the hurricane season, Hunter said hurricane mitigation activities are now being actively undertaken, such as drain cleaning, to minimise the impact of the hurricane season.

“The hurricane season peaks in September/October, so we will do another cycle towards the middle of August into the first couple of weeks in September. That will be our second cycle. The hurricane season ends at the end of November, so whatever has accumulated in the drains between September and the end of November, we will clean in December, so there is a three-cycle process that we undertake for mitigation purposes,” Hunter said.