分类： politics

Jamaica’s Minister of Works Robert Morgan has reaffirmed the Andrew Holness-led administration’s commitment to delivering on a key electoral promise: the rehabilitation of 10 roads in every parliamentary constituency across the country, through a second phase of the flagship Shared Prosperity through Accelerated Improvement to our Road Network (SPARK) infrastructure initiative.

In an interview with the Jamaica Observer this Thursday, Morgan clarified that the first phase of the programme, SPARK 1, is scheduled to wrap up during the first quarter of the next fiscal year, making way for the launch of SPARK 2 to fulfill the original 10-roads-per-constituency commitment. “This was a core pledge in our election manifesto, and the prime minister has been unwavering in seeing this promise through. SPARK 2 was always planned to address gaps left by the first phase of works,” Morgan added.

The minister’s comments came in response to reports emerging from Wednesday’s sitting of Parliament’s Public Administration and Appropriations Committee (PAAC), where National Works Agency (NWA) CEO EG Hunter revealed that initial budget allocations for SPARK 1 would not be sufficient to complete all 10 identified roads per constituency. Hunter explained that when communities first participated in consultations to select priority road projects, no accurate cost estimates had been prepared. The number of roads that can be completed under the current budget, he noted, depends entirely on the actual cost of each selected project: if the first one or two roads in a constituency consume a large share of the allocation, fewer remaining roads can be addressed. As it stands, more than 250 of the 630 initially identified roads will not see any work under SPARK 1.

Morgan pushed back on suggestions the government was backing away from its promise, explaining that the $45-billion SPARK programme – the most ambitious infrastructure initiative Jamaica has ever undertaken – has required budget adjustments that were always anticipated. He noted that the government never claimed one single phase of works could repair every deficient road across the island in one go.

“Unforeseen circumstances have pushed up the required investment far beyond our initial estimates,” Morgan explained. “We have found far more roads that need accompanying water pipe replacement than we originally projected, and many existing road designs required far more extensive upgrades than initial costings accounted for.” He pointed to the programme’s launch site, Everest Drive in Eastern Kingston, as a case in point: the project was originally budgeted at $70 million, but ended up costing $100 million after engineers determined additional retaining walls and expanded drainage infrastructure were required to deliver a durable, long-lasting road.

Morgan emphasized that the government has made a deliberate policy choice to prioritize quality of construction over speed and volume, a shift designed to end Jamaica’s long history of short-lived road repairs. “We are not cutting corners. Our goal is to build roads that last 10 to 15 years. If we cut corners, they won’t even last five years. The old routine – just lay asphalt, and two years later you have potholes, swollen road surfaces, burst water pipes, and the National Water Commission (NWC) has to dig up the whole road again – that is going to end,” he said.

The minister added that the Holness administration has already learned critical lessons from early challenges in the SPARK programme. For example, at both Richings Avenue and Liguanea Avenue, repaired sections of road were dug up by the NWC for pipe work just four months after construction was completed – a miscoordination that has led to better inter-agency planning moving forward. “This is an unprecedented project: Jamaica has never delivered 400 road upgrades under a single programme before. This is new territory for the NWA, for lead contractor China Harbour Engineering Company, for all our subcontractors, and for the NWC. We have adjusted our processes as we go to fix these early issues,” Morgan said.

While Morgan confirmed that SPARK 2 was a core manifesto commitment and planning is already underway – with instructions issued to the NWA to begin preparation work – he noted that the programme will not necessarily launch immediately after SPARK 1 concludes in the first quarter of next year. For the current SPARK 1 phase, most constituencies will see between five and eight roads completed. Morgan used his own constituency, Clarendon North Central, as an example: only five roads will be finished in the first phase. By contrast, St James North Western, a smaller constituency represented by MP Dr Horace Chang, will see all 10 promised roads completed under SPARK 1, and most constituencies in Portmore will also see the majority of their identified roads finished in the first phase.

When the 2024 Environmental Performance Index (EPI) released by Yale University placed Jamaica 68th out of 180 nations with an overall score of 48.5, the country’s top environmental official did not downplay the gaps holding the island back from better global standing. While acknowledging solid progress in high-priority environmental sectors, Water, Environment and Climate Change Minister Matthew Samuda emphasized that transformative, systemic change is needed to lift Jamaica’s ranking, during his address to the House of Representatives’ 2026/27 Sectoral Debate on Tuesday.

The EPI, a leading global benchmark for national environmental performance, scores countries on a 0 to 100 scale, where higher marks reflect stronger environmental governance, policy effectiveness, and natural resource protection. Scores between 80 and 100 signal long-standing, robust policies that deliver strong outcomes for environmental health, ecosystem resilience, and climate action. Scores from 60 to 79 mark moderate performance—meaning basic environmental management systems are in place, but clear opportunities for improvement remain. Scores below 30 indicate critical, unaddressed environmental challenges that demand urgent policy intervention. Jamaica’s 48.5 score falls in the moderate-to-low range, leaving significant room for advancement.

To the government’s credit, Jamaica ranks among the top global performers in several key environmental metrics measured by the 2024 EPI. The country secured 30th place for climate change action, 27th for protection of marine key biodiversity areas, 28th for forestry conservation, and 30th for sustainable fisheries management. These strong results reflect targeted investments and policy commitments that have delivered tangible progress for the island’s natural ecosystems.

Despite these wins, Samuda openly acknowledged persistent performance gaps across multiple critical domains. Jamaica ranks far lower in a series of high-priority areas: 126th for biodiversity and habitat protection, 106th for overall environmental health, 127th for species conservation, 147th for protected terrestrial lands, 69th for air pollution control, and 133rd for solid and hazardous waste management. These underperforming areas, Samuda noted, are dragging down the country’s overall EPI ranking and require urgent attention.

Samuda stressed that incremental, small-scale policy changes will not be enough to address these gaps. Meaningful improvement, he argued, requires systemic overhauls, stricter regulatory enforcement, expanded and improved environmental data collection systems, and targeted capital investment to upgrade infrastructure and capacity. Citing that policy crafted without reliable data is little more than guesswork, and enforcement without data remains inconsistent and ineffective, Samuda announced that his ministry had tabled two landmark policy documents in parliament: the Overarching Protected Areas Policy (White Paper) and the draft Cays Management Policy (Green Paper).

The new Overarching Protected Areas Policy will replace Jamaica’s outdated 1997 framework, providing clear, updated policy direction for the sustainable management of the country’s entire Protected Areas System. Currently, Jamaica manages more than 350 protected areas spanning national parks, marine reserves, fish sanctuaries, forest reserves, and managed forest areas, all designated under overlapping pieces of legislation including the Forest Act and the Natural Resources Conservation Authority Act. The updated policy will unify governance and streamline management for these critical conservation lands.

In addition to updating protected area policy, Samuda confirmed that the ministry is working alongside the Forestry Department to repeal and replace the decades-old Forest Act, strengthening the country’s environmental legislative framework. The new bill will include key new provisions outlining processes for land transfer, comprehensive forest and forest land inventory and classification, and the formal establishment of a statutory no-burn season to reduce wildfire risk and air pollution. The draft Forest Bill has already been completed and submitted to the Cabinet’s Legislative Committee for review, and is on track to be tabled in parliament before the end of May.

The policy package represents a major step forward for Jamaica’s environmental governance, as the country works to turn the EPI’s benchmarking into actionable improvement that lifts both its global ranking and on-the-ground environmental outcomes.

In the wake of catastrophic damage left by Hurricane Melissa, Jamaica has moved one step closer to a coordinated, accelerated recovery effort after the House of Representatives approved legislation establishing the National Reconstruction and Resilience Authority (NaRRA). Senior government official Delano Seiveright, Jamaica’s State Minister, has framed the bill’s passage as a transformative milestone for the island nation, which is grappling with one of the costliest natural disasters in its recent history.

Early damage assessments put total losses from the storm at an estimated US$12.2 billion. More than 215,000 structures across the country suffered damage or complete destruction, and critical public services including schools, hospitals, and core transportation and utility infrastructure were knocked offline across wide swathes of the island. Coastal communities like Black River bore the brunt of the storm’s impact, facing near-total disruption to daily life and local economies.

Seiveright emphasized that the unprecedented scale of destruction rules out a business-as-usual response. “This is not a normal situation. The scale of the destruction demands a structured, coordinated and urgent response,” he told lawmakers, warning that bureaucratic gridlock poses a far greater threat to effective recovery than procedural concerns. “After a disaster of this scale, the greater risk is paralysis,” he said.

To address concerns about transparency and accountability, Seiveright outlined multiple layers of built-in safeguards designed to prevent misuse of funds and mismanagement. All NaRRA-led projects will require formal approval from the national Cabinet, and the Auditor General’s office will maintain continuous independent oversight. The authority is also mandated to submit public annual reports to Parliament, and a fully searchable public electronic register will list all approved projects to enable public scrutiny. Seiveright stressed that the new body is not intended to bypass standard governance processes, but rather cut through crippling bureaucratic red tape while retaining full accountability.

The framework for NaRRA draws on hard lessons learned from major disaster recovery efforts around the world over the past 15 years. Seiveright specifically referenced slow, fragmented recovery efforts following the 2010 Haiti earthquake, Hurricane Katrina in the United States, and Hurricane Maria across the Caribbean, where uncoordinated systems left communities waiting years for core services to be restored.

To date, the Jamaican government has already secured roughly US$6.7 billion in international and domestic financing for recovery efforts, and initial work to restore critical infrastructure has helped stabilize public and investor confidence. Seiveright added that NaRRA is not a permanent new government body: it is established as a time-limited entity, overseen by a multi-stakeholder national committee chaired by leading economist Professor Peter Blair Henry.

“Jamaica cannot afford delay. We must act, and we must deliver,” Seiveright said. The NaRRA Bill now advances to the Jamaican Senate for its final vote before it can be signed into law.

A public debate over the legal standing of Jamaica’s Rastafari community has intensified, after Culture Minister Olivia Grange reaffirmed the government’s position that Rastafarians already hold full equal rights under existing national law, pushing back against fresh demands from Rastafari community leaders for targeted, explicit legislation.

Grange laid out the administration’s stance Thursday during proceedings of the joint select committee tasked with reviewing the government’s Green Paper for Jamaica’s National Policy on Culture, Entertainment and the Creative Economy. She pushed back against what she described as a misleading public narrative that has emerged in recent discourse, claiming Rastafarians are denied formal recognition and equal legal protection in the country.

“Recent commentary in local press has raised questions about whether the government recognizes Rastafari, and whether community members hold the same rights as followers of other religious groups,” Grange told the committee. “I want to place on official record that they do, in fact, have the same rights as any other religious group in Jamaica.”

The minister emphasized that equal protections for Rastafari believers are already enshrined in Jamaica’s national Charter of Rights, and added that the current administration has done more to advance and support the Rastafari community than any preceding government in the nation’s history. As evidence of the government’s commitment, she cited the $176-million public contribution to the Coral Gardens Benevolent Fund, a initiative created after the state issued a formal apology for the 1963 Coral Gardens atrocity, a violent state-led crackdown targeting Rastafarians that left multiple community members dead.

Grange’s remarks came just days after the Rastafari Mansions and Organizations (RMO), a leading collective of Rastafari groups, publicly criticized the government for exaggerating existing legal protections and renewed calls for a dedicated, comprehensive Rastafari Rights and Justice Act. The organization argues systemic discrimination against the community remains embedded in Jamaican law and government practice.

The debate gained new momentum after neighboring St. Kitts and Nevis passed legislation granting formal legal recognition to Rastafari, including explicit provisions safeguarding sacramental rights, cultural identity, and economic concessions for the community. The move sparked direct comparisons to Jamaica’s legal framework and amplified RMO’s demands for explicit constitutional recognition in Jamaica.

In a public statement released April 21, the RMO argued that broad constitutional guarantees of religious freedom do not go far enough to grant formal recognition to Rastafari as both a distinct religious faith and an indigenous Jamaican cultural group. Without explicit, targeted legal protections, the organization says, systemic discrimination and inconsistent enforcement of existing rights persist across key public sectors, including law enforcement, education, employment, and healthcare.

The group also levied additional criticism against the government, accusing authorities of failing to deliver adequate support to Rastafari communities impacted by Hurricane Melissa. The RMO claims disaster relief efforts did not accommodate the community’s unique dietary, cultural, and health needs.

Further, the organization pointed to recent court cases involving cannabis, known as ganja to Rastafarians who use it sacramentally. The RMO argues that even after amendments to Jamaica’s Dangerous Drugs Act, protections for Rastafari sacramental use of cannabis are still unevenly applied by authorities.

Despite rejecting the RMO’s core claim that existing protections are insufficient, Grange signaled the Jamaican government remains open to broad, inclusive dialogue about the Rastafari community’s place in the nation’s legal and cultural landscape.

“I invite full discussion on Rastafari as a religion, to examine the history of what has been done in this country, to chart a path forward toward even greater embrace and recognition of the importance of Rastafari to Jamaica,” Grange said Thursday.

In a landmark outcome that has reshaped the political landscape of the Eastern Caribbean, Gaston Browne and his ruling Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party (ABLP) have secured a historic fourth consecutive term in office, following a decisive landslide victory in the country’s general election. Preliminary vote counts confirm the scale of ABLP’s triumph, with the party claiming 15 of the 17 contested parliamentary seats — a dramatic expansion of its narrow 9-7 majority won in the 2023 January polls.

This unprecedented win cements Browne’s place in Antigua and Barbuda’s political history: he is the first prime minister of the nation to secure four straight general election victories since the country gained independence. The main opposition United Progressive Party (UPP) was left with only a single seat, which will be retained by party leader Jamale Pringle. On the island of Barbuda, the Barbuda People’s Movement held onto its local seat, with incumbent Trevor Walker retaining his position.

Following the confirmation of the results, Mark Golding, Opposition Leader of neighboring Jamaica, issued a formal statement of congratulations shared via the social platform X. Golding extended warm wishes to both Browne and the entire ABLP for their successful campaign, noting that Browne’s return to office — a post he has held since first assuming leadership in 2014 — is a clear reflection of the ongoing trust and confidence the people of Antigua and Barbuda place in his leadership. Golding also shared his expectation of productive collaborative work with Browne’s new administration in the coming term, concluding his statement by wishing the incoming government success in delivering on its new mandate.

WASHINGTON D.C. – In a sharp escalation of U.S. policy toward the communist-governed Caribbean nation, former U.S. President Donald Trump announced expansive new sanctions against Cuba on Friday, targeting dozens of domestic actors across key sectors of the island’s economy and levying threats against international financial institutions that conduct business with sanctioned individuals.

This latest round of restrictions marks a new peak in the Trump administration’s years-long campaign to ramp up diplomatic and economic pressure on Havana, coming as Cuba grapples with a deepening economic emergency. The crisis has been exacerbated significantly by the cut-off of Venezuelan oil shipments, a critical lifeline for the Cuban energy grid for decades.

Outlined in a formal executive order, the new penalties apply to any individual found to be active in five core areas of Cuba’s state-controlled economy: energy, defense and military-related materiel, metals and mining, financial services, and national security. The order also leaves room for the U.S. government to extend sanctions to actors in additional economic sectors at a later date. Beyond economic targeting, the measure also applies sanctions to Cuban officials deemed by Washington to have participated in serious human rights violations or public corruption.

As part of the order, any individual named on the sanctions list will be barred from entering the United States, and all of their assets under U.S. jurisdiction will be frozen. Most notably, the executive order mandates that any foreign financial entity that engages in transactions with sanctioned individuals will also face U.S. penalties, a provision designed to cut off sanctioned actors from the global financial system entirely.

Notably, the new sanctions come even after both sides took tentative steps toward bilateral dialogue in recent months. Senior U.S. diplomatic officials traveled to Havana for formal talks with Cuban counterparts as recently as April, raising faint hopes of a de-escalation of tensions between the two governments.

Long-time Cuba critic and Cuban-American Secretary of State Marco Rubio has repeatedly pushed for sweeping policy shifts and increased pressure on the Havana government, a position that has aligned closely with the Trump administration’s hardline approach. Trump himself has openly discussed aggressive actions toward the island nation, which sits just 90 miles off the coast of Florida and has operated under a near-continuous U.S. trade embargo since Fidel Castro’s 1959 communist revolution that first severed bilateral ties.

KINGSTON, Jamaica — As the Jamaican Senate wrapped up debate and passed a revised version of the 2026 Cybercrimes Bill last Friday, a key opposition lawmaker used the legislative moment to push for sweeping new transparency measures for the nation’s police force, amid growing public concern over a sharp uptick in fatal police shootings.

Opposition Senator Allan Bernard is calling for the creation of a comprehensive digital accountability regime that would enshrine a mandatory statutory body-worn camera policy for all officers of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF). The push comes as the country grapples with a troubling spike in fatal police encounters: 115 fatal shootings have been recorded by police so far this year, a 32 percent jump from the 87 deaths recorded in the same period in 2025.

Bernard’s call also directly pushes back against recent comments from the island’s top security official, National Security Minister Dr. Horace Chang, who publicly dismissed previous demands for body camera use during specialized police operations, dismissing the idea as “crazy”.

While Bernard confirmed that the opposition bloc remains supportive of the amended Cybercrimes Bill, he stressed that the conversation around digital accountability must extend beyond regulation of private citizens to cover state actors themselves. He argued that true national security cannot be separated from adherence to constitutional protections, and that public safety must always be rooted in respect for basic human rights.

“Digital accountability must apply not only to the governed but also to those who are doing the governing,” Bernard said in remarks on the Senate floor. “That means oversight of the police, their searches, their seizures, their arrests and too oftentimes in Jamaica, the extrajudicial killings.”

Reporting by Lynford Simpson