Editorial | Expensive welcome sign

There aren’t too many government projects that are completed below budget. If this happens, it’s a reason for taxpayers to be thankful. So, we are happy that the cost of the city’s welcome sign at the roundabout at the Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay, St James, was completed at 13.5 per cent below budget, at J$14.7 million, according to figures provided by Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett.

But as happy for this mercy as taxpayers will likely be, there is nothing in it for Minister Bartlett to be mockingly supercilious, or snooty about. He’ll still have a hard time convincing anyone that the price for the project was worth it.

When the plan was announced a year ago to rebuild the original sign, knocked down by a crashed vehicle, the price tag was a jaw-dropping J$17 million. It wasn’t surprising that the political Opposition sought to make partisan hay of the cost.

The Government’s Tourism Product Development Company attempted to deflect this, in part, with high-sounding arty, technical stuff. The sign would be “a dual façade” with illuminated letters that would provide “a tropical contemporary interpretation of a traditional resort along a bay”. We confess not knowing what that means. It sounds expensive, though. Which it was. Especially since no one has been awed by the sign.

UNSEEN VALUE

Even the reduced price of J$14.4 million, or around US$105,000, could buy a 500-plus square-foot apartment in a decent area of Kingston, St Catherine, and Montego Bay, even in communities not far from the location of the sign. So, Mr Bartlett’s ridiculing of the complaints because of the ‘saving’ isn’t endearing. It matters little to us that J$5 million, or 34 per cent, of the eventual cost of the project was paid for by the private sector.

What should matter always is that Government, and by extension, taxpayers, get the best value for their money, and that that is seen to be the case.