标签： Jamaica

KINGSTON, Jamaica — Jamaica’s national government has unveiled an $800 million initiative to build 95 climate-resilient greenhouses across four of the island’s parishes, with completion targeted for the end of 2026. The plan was announced by Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining Floyd Green on Wednesday, May 13, during his 2026/2027 Sectoral Debate address to the country’s House of Representatives.

Minister Green emphasized that protected agricultural infrastructure is a critical component of strengthening resilience for Jamaica’s farming sector, which is disproportionately exposed to the impacts of climate change. He framed the project as the largest single investment in protected agriculture structures in the nation’s history. The greenhouses will be distributed across strategic growing regions: 40 units will be constructed in Mocho, Clarendon; 20 in Water Valley, St Ann; 15 in Black Stone Edge, also in St Ann; 10 in Lancaster, Manchester; and the remaining 10 in Damhead, St Catherine.

Beyond the new construction, the government also plans to redevelop the existing greenhouse cluster in Content, Manchester into a fully functional dedicated protected agricultural zone. The upgraded site will include new on-site storage facilities and an improved access farm road to support local producers.

The project forms part of the broader $50-million US ADAPT Jamaica initiative, funded by the Green Climate Fund (GCF). A key innovation of this program is that all new greenhouses will be engineered to withstand the force of Category Five hurricanes, a design tailored to Jamaica’s frequent exposure to extreme tropical weather events.

“This is one of the defining features of the project,” Green told lawmakers. “We are designing greenhouses that fit our specific climate reality, and we will invest more than $1.5 billion over the next five years to roll out this resilient infrastructure across the island.”

Over the five-year timeline of the GCF ADAPT Jamaica project, the overarching goal is to boost climate resilience for roughly 700,000 smallholder and vulnerable farmers across Jamaica’s central parishes, helping to protect food supplies and support livelihoods amid growing climate uncertainty.

One of the most high-profile criminal cases in recent U.S. history has taken a dramatic legal turn, as the South Carolina Supreme Court has thrown out the double murder conviction of disgraced former attorney Alex Murdaugh and ordered a new trial. The 57-year-old, who comes from a powerful local dynasty of judges and legal professionals, had been serving a life sentence for the 2021 killings of his 22-year-old son Paul and 52-year-old wife Maggie at the family’s remote hunting property.

In a unanimous ruling released Wednesday, the state’s highest court found that Murdaugh was denied his constitutional right to an impartial trial, after court clerk Rebecca Hill exerted improper influence over the jury during his 2023 original trial. Post-trial interviews with jurors revealed that Hill actively encouraged panel members to closely scrutinize Murdaugh’s body language during his testimony, and warned them not to be swayed by evidence presented by the defense team. The justices wrote in their opinion that Hill “placed her fingers on the scales of justice”, irreparably compromising the integrity of the original jury process.

The ruling also faulted the original trial’s presiding judge for allowing prosecutors to introduce an excessive volume of evidence related to Murdaugh’s unrelated financial crimes, which the court concluded unfairly prejudiced the jury against the defendant. Prior to the murder trial, Murdaugh’s long-running pattern of financial fraud had already come to light: he is currently serving a 27-year prison sentence (corrected from the original report’s 40-year) for stealing millions of dollars from his own law firm and vulnerable clients, a scheme he ran to fund a crippling secret opioid addiction that cost him an estimated $50,000 per week at its peak.

Prosecutors had argued during the first trial that Murdaugh murdered his wife and son to distract from and gain sympathy for himself as his years of embezzlement were on the verge of public exposure. Murdaugh took the stand in his own defense, admitting to his financial crimes, long-term drug addiction, and repeated lies about his activities, but he has consistently maintained his innocence in the killings. Physical evidence from Paul Murdaugh’s cell phone placed Alex Murdaugh at the dog kennels where the shootings occurred just minutes before the murders, a key detail that helped secure the original guilty verdict.

The original trial received widespread national media attention, with gavel-to-gavel televised coverage drawing millions of viewers across the United States. Streaming giants Netflix and HBO capitalized on the public’s fascination with the case, releasing popular docu-dramas examining the Murdaugh family’s decades of local influence and the details of the murders just months after the original conviction.

KINGSTON, Jamaica — In the wake of Hurricane Melissa’s destructive passage across the island, a senior Jamaican government official has pushed back against public scrutiny over unspent disaster donations, framing a new real-time audit from the Auditor General’s Department as proof the administration is delivering meaningful relief to affected communities while validating plans for a dedicated national reconstruction agency.

Marlon Morgan, a government senator and parliamentary secretary in the Ministry of Information, outlined key findings from the ongoing audit Tuesday: the government has already committed more than $11.3 billion to 420 active Hurricane Melissa relief and recovery contracts, a figure that far outpaces the $1.4 billion in unspent disaster donations flagged in the Auditor General’s preliminary report.

Morgan emphasized that while the report correctly notes unspent funds held by the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM) — which has spent less than 2% of the $1.44 billion in total donations allocated to it for the response — the far larger volume of active recovery spending demonstrates the government’s commitment to supporting storm-impacted residents.

“What is instructive is that the $1.4 billion in donations cited in the Auditor General’s Report as being unspent so far is exponentially outstripped by the massive $11.3 billion that is actually being spent on various relief and recovery initiatives,” Morgan said. “There can be no denying that in spite of bureaucracy-related red tape which delays project implementation and the expenditure of available funds, the Government has utilised practical and situationally appropriate mechanisms to deliver timely and effective relief for citizens affected by Hurricane Melissa, while ensuring value for money.”

Morgan framed the real-time audit itself as a critical step toward upholding government transparency and accountability to the Jamaican public. He added that the audit’s findings clearly underscore the scope of the government’s ongoing recovery work, noting that the document references the full $11.3 billion in active spending across 420 separate contracts. He also characterized the audit, which uncovered ODPEM’s low spending rate on donations, as a timely and important assessment that highlights the need for administrative reform.

Crucially, Morgan tied the audit’s findings of bureaucratic delays to the government’s push for the new National Reconstruction and Resilience Agency (NaRRA), which recently completed parliamentary debate. He praised Prime Minister Andrew Holness and his cabinet for their foresight in creating the new agency, which is designed to cut through red tape and speed up post-disaster recovery and long-term resilience work.

Morgan stressed that the audit contains no findings of corruption or improper misappropriation of funds, noting that its core observations around implementation delays merely confirm longstanding public frustrations with bureaucratic gridlock that has held back national growth.

“The Jamaican people should note that the report does not contain any scandalous or damning finding of loss and/or corruption, and in many respects, reaffirms the bureaucracy-related challenges that many Jamaicans are already aware of, and understandably so, have grown impatient with,” he explained. “The public is fully aware that our country’s growth and development are being inhibited, in part, by our stark implementation challenges. What the Auditor General Report underscores is that it cannot be business as usual. It affirms that NaRRA will go a far way in helping Jamaica efficiently and effectively utilise available funds in improving the quality of life of the Jamaican people.”

Morgan added that the recent parliamentary debate over NaRRA served an important public education purpose, giving Jamaicans a clearer picture of how outdated bureaucratic processes — particularly around public procurement — are stifling national progress. He noted that the audit’s findings directly reinforce the arguments the government made during the debate in favor of reform.

“As a Government, we did our research and presented data making the case that there is a better way forward in pursuit of reconstruction and resilience building — a 21st-century, fit-for-purpose way that will have positive impact and deliver transformational results in a timely fashion, while ensuring transparency, probity and accountability,” Morgan said.

He reminded the public that the audit represents a snapshot of ongoing work, rather than a final assessment of the full recovery effort. “I wish to emphasise the fact that the Report in question is the product of a real-time audit, which is a snapshot in time, and as such, it should be appreciated that post-Hurricane Melissa relief and recovery activities are ongoing; they are not at an end.”

KINGSTON, Jamaica — In a landmark address during this week’s Sectoral Debate in the House of Representatives, Anthony Hylton, the Jamaican Opposition’s spokesman on Trade, Industry and Global Logistics, laid out a bold new economic development plan that puts micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) at the center of the country’s next growth phase.\n\nHylton opened his remarks by framing the Opposition’s policy approach as rooted in practical, tangible action that delivers immediate, visible benefits to citizens while building robust foundations for long-term systemic transformation. “On this side of the House, we believe Jamaica’s next phase of development must focus on practical, achievable initiatives that deliver visible benefits while laying the foundation for long-term transformation,” Hylton told parliamentarians. He emphasized that unlocking the untapped productive potential of the nation’s MSME sector is the cornerstone of this vision.\n\nHylton argued that the current status of MSMEs in Jamaica is unsustainable: these enterprises carry a disproportionate share of the country’s employment and innovation burden, yet remain confined to the margins of the national economy. He noted that in high-performing global economies, MSME expansion is enabled by fully integrated support ecosystems, where access to financing, efficient logistics infrastructure, digital business platforms, targeted technical assistance, and expanded market channels operate in seamless alignment to fuel growth.\n\nTo address gaps in Jamaica’s current support framework, Hylton announced the Opposition’s backing for a dedicated National MSME Growth and Export Programme. This initiative would deliver low-interest financing tied directly to production output, develop shared manufacturing and agro-processing facilities that cut overhead costs for small operators, and embed end-to-end support for packaging upgrades, international standards certification, digital commerce adoption, and export market preparation.\n\nBeyond targeted programming, Hylton called for a creative repurposing of existing national infrastructure to better serve entrepreneurs and local production. He offered one high-impact proposal: reimagining the Postal Corporation of Jamaica as a National SME Incubator and E-Commerce Platform. “Our post offices should no longer exist merely as traditional mail facilities. They can become digital business hubs, export gateways, fulfilment centres, and logistical support systems serving entrepreneurs in every parish across Jamaica,” he explained. In partnership with the private sector, Hylton said this conversion would dramatically reduce one of the most prohibitive barriers to small business success: the lack of affordable access to logistics networks, digital payment systems, modern technology, and global market connectivity.\n\nHylton also called for a structural overhaul of the Jamaica Business Development Corporation, pushing the agency to shift away from its current administrative focus and evolve into an active market-maker. Under this new mandate, the corporation would work directly to secure international retail partnerships for local goods, expand global shelf space for the “Things Jamaican” brand, and connect small domestic businesses to flexible blended financing opportunities that fit their needs.\n\nRejecting the idea that sustainable widespread prosperity can be driven solely by a small cohort of large corporations, Hylton insisted that long-term success depends on empowering thousands of individual Jamaicans to produce, innovate, scale their operations, and compete in global export markets.\n\nTurning to Jamaica’s logistics and trade advantage, Hylton acknowledged the country’s valuable geographic positioning as a strategic trade hub, but stressed that location alone is not enough to deliver inclusive growth. He called for urgent, decisive action to develop integrated logistics parks connected to existing ports, national highways, airports, and industrial zones. These parks would be designed to attract manufacturing, assembly, warehousing, and distribution operations, while Special Economic Zones would be reoriented from isolated, disconnected enclaves to engines of broad-based growth that benefit surrounding local communities. “Every logistics investment must create opportunities for Jamaican suppliers, truckers, technicians, contractors, and workers,” Hylton said.\n\nHe also made the case for modernizing Jamaica’s logistics governance system, noting that the Port Community System (PCS) developed under the national Logistics Hub framework must move beyond its current status as a limited data testing space. Instead, Hylton stressed, it must operate as a unified coordinating mechanism that brings together customs authorities, shipping lines, freight forwarders, trucking operators, warehouses, terminal managers, and industry regulators into a single, transparent, accountable system.\n\nHylton concluded by warning that none of these proposed economic transformations can succeed without intentional investment in workforce readiness and human capital development. He emphasized that economic growth must uplift, not bypass, local communities, outlining a second key initiative: a Community Enterprise Link Programme. This program would ensure that major industrial and logistics developments create tangible opportunities for nearby communities through local supplier sourcing, targeted supplier development programs, expanded access to public and private procurement opportunities, business mentorship, and direct community investment.\n\n“Growth must not remain concentrated among the few. It must create pathways into ownership, entrepreneurship, and upward mobility for ordinary Jamaicans across every parish of this country,” Hylton said.