Following the destructive path of Hurricane Melissa, Jamaica’s $10-billion Restoration of Owner or Occupant Family Shelters (ROOFS) program has marked a major leap forward in disaster recovery delivery with the launch of an artificial intelligence-driven management solution from regional fintech leader WiPay Group.
The ROOFS initiative, first rolled out in January 2024 to support thousands of households impacted by the storm, has long relied on WiPay’s robust digital infrastructure to power fund and resource tracking, delivered in partnership with the National Payments Company of Jamaica (NPCJ). Up until this upgrade, however, the program faced notable growing pains, particularly when distributing the $75,000 in discretionary recovery cash allocated to eligible households. Long wait times, overcrowded pickup locations, and duplicated scheduling left many recipients frustrated and slowed the pace of rebuilding.
To resolve these bottlenecks, WiPay has rolled out its upgraded GovPay2.0, an AI-first platform designed to overhaul the entire end-to-end recovery fund disbursement experience. Unlike the early iteration of the program, which focused only on getting funds to recipients, the new system manages every step of the process from scheduling to delivery. To date, the ROOFS program has already distributed more than $8.25 billion in support to affected households, with the vast majority of that allocated as construction materials available through more than 200 partner hardware stores across storm-impacted regions. Eligible households with moderate to severe damage can access between $125,000 and $425,000 in building supplies, accessed via a streamlined system of text notifications and scannable QR codes that eliminates fraud and speeds up pickup.
Kibwe McGann, Chief Marketing Officer of WiPay Group, explained the core value of the AI upgrade in an official press statement. “We’ve moved from simply distributing funds to managing the entire experience around it. When people no longer have to guess, wait for hours, or deal with overcrowding, the system starts to work the way it should,” he said. The new AI algorithm is built to eliminate scheduling errors, allocating time slots to recipients in a way that avoids overcapacity at any of the more than 100 authorized cash pickup locations across the island, in partnership with local financial services provider Lasco Financial Services Limited. For recipients who prefer not to travel to pickup points, the platform also enables direct, express deposits of cash allocations to personal bank accounts, cutting down on travel costs and the security risks associated with carrying large amounts of physical cash.
McGann noted that the new solution draws directly from WiPay’s experience delivering similar digital relief management during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the company supported large-scale government grant distribution across the region. “Between the cash appointment management solution and express direct-to-bank solutions, we expect to alleviate the current challenges and pain points,” he added.
Beyond resolving immediate delivery issues, McGann emphasized the long-term strategic value of digitizing disaster relief programs. The AI-powered system captures granular, real-time data on every step of the recovery process, from how much construction material is requested in specific regions to the pace of fund distribution. This data not only ensures that all funds are used for their intended recovery purposes, eliminating misallocation and fraud, but also provides the Jamaican government with actionable, data-driven insights to improve disaster preparedness for future extreme weather events.
“As Jamaica continues to address the challenges in western Jamaica, McGann pointed to the benefits of digitising targeted grant relief. Apart from being able to ensure that the funds are used for their intended purpose, he pointed to the data management aspect to support government insights into future events — this includes the quantity of materials demanded and in which specific parts of the country, after a storm. The system that we developed tracks all of that in detail to ensure that if something like this happens again, the Government is now able to take data-driven insights to better prepare the country for what is needed,” McGann said in closing.