标签： Jamaica

KINGSTON, Jamaica — In a bold policy announcement delivered at the Urban Development Corporation (UDC) Board Retreat on April 30, Prime Minister Dr. Andrew Holness has laid out a new national development vision centered on bringing improved public amenities and accessible housing to communities across every corner of Jamaica. At the heart of this vision is a non-negotiable mandate: the UDC, in formal partnership with the National Housing Trust (NHT), will develop a public park in each of Jamaica’s 14 parishes.

Holness made clear that meaningful national progress cannot be measured only in economic indicators, but must show up in tangible, daily improvements for ordinary Jamaicans. Accessible, thoughtfully designed recreational spaces, he argued, are a core public good that directly lift community well-being. The island-wide park initiative is designed to extend the benefits of high-quality public spaces to all citizens, regardless of their location, giving every community a safe, welcoming, professionally managed space for leisure, social connection, and physical wellness.

Drawing on existing successful projects as a blueprint, the prime minister pointed to Harmony Beach Park as a model of what well-executed public space development can achieve. He detailed how projects of this kind do more than provide green space: they reshape entire neighborhoods, boost local pride, and create long-term improvements to quality of life that ripple out across surrounding communities.

To move the initiative forward quickly, Holness has instructed the UDC to immediately conduct a national survey of state-owned lands, identifying parcels suitable for park development and present a full report to his office outlining potential sites for each parish. He stressed that this process requires disciplined, efficient use of public assets, ensuring that underutilized state lands are put to work serving the public good. The prime minister also emphasized that timely delivery and rigorous project management will be non-negotiable priorities for the program, pushing the UDC to avoid delays and deliver results for Jamaican communities.

Beyond the park initiative, Holness called on the UDC to leverage its extensive national land bank to advance another critical national priority: closing Jamaica’s persistent housing gap. With unmet demand for affordable quality housing remaining a major challenge across the island, the prime minister said the UDC has a central role to play in unlocking its land reserves for residential development. He called for coordinated action across all relevant government agencies to mobilize resources and address the housing shortage, framing the work as a core responsibility of state development entities.

Jamaica’s construction industry is pushing for targeted government intervention to unlock the growth of domestic contractors, after Prime Minister Andrew Holness recently called on local firms to scale up their operations to meet the country’s rising infrastructure and housing demand.

The call to action comes directly from The Incorporated Masterbuilders Association of Jamaica (IMAJ), which issued a formal media statement responding to Holness’ remarks delivered at a ground-breaking ceremony for the new Galina Housing Development project in St Mary this past Friday. At the event, Holness stressed that Jamaica needs a cohort of large-scale, enterprise-level contractors capable of matching the country’s growing need for affordable housing and public infrastructure, and urged domestic construction firms to expand their operational capacity to fill this gap.

While the IMAJ has expressed full alignment with the Prime Minister’s vision, the association says turning this goal into reality requires systematic government support to address the structural barriers that have held local contractors back from competing and growing at scale. In its statement, the organization outlined a series of persistent challenges that prevent domestic firms from increasing their asset bases, investing in modern heavy equipment, upskilling workforces, and taking on large-scale national projects.

Among the most pressing issues identified are uncertain government payment timelines, unstructured procurement processes that derail long-term project planning, and long delays in resolving contractual variation claims. The IMAJ also highlighted the unfair competitive advantage held by foreign contractors, which often access preferential financing and concessionary agreement terms that are not available to Jamaican private construction companies.

The association also pushed back against the common public narrative that attributes all project delays to contractor misconduct or inefficiency. It noted that the majority of project delays stem from systemic issues outside of contractors’ control, including last-minute scope changes, delayed design finalization, slow regulatory approvals, unforeseen site conditions, and backlogs in variation processing across public sector agencies. If these systemic weaknesses are not acknowledged, the IMAJ argues, local contractors are unfairly blamed for issues they cannot resolve, which discourages the domestic talent and private investment needed to build a sustainable long-term construction sector.

To address these gaps, the IMAJ is calling on the Jamaican government to develop a formal Emerging Contractor Capacity Policy, co-designed in direct consultation with the organized construction industry, that targets four key priority areas.

First, the association is calling for a dedicated national contractor capacity building programme, to be administered either through the Development Bank of Jamaica or via a formal partnership with public housing entities such as the National Housing Trust (NHT). This programme would provide domestic construction firms with critical support including affordable equipment financing, working capital loans, bonding facilities, technical skills training, and management capacity building. The IMAJ emphasized that local firms cannot make the large-scale investments Holness has called for without access to low-cost capital to fund expansion.

Second, the association is demanding sweeping reform of Jamaica’s current public procurement and project management systems. It notes that the current laborious, slow-moving procurement process discourages private domestic firms from bidding for public sector contracts. The IMAJ says public sector agencies must be held to the same accountability standards that the government requires of contractors, with binding, defined timelines for completing procurement approvals, certifying contractor invoices, processing variation claims, and disbursing approved payments. Persistent uncertainty around these timelines makes it impossible for contractors to maintain the investment and growth the government is asking for, the group added.

Third, the IMAJ is calling for a transparent, enforceable regulatory framework governing foreign contractor participation in Jamaican projects. The association expressed support for Holness’ commitment that foreign-led projects should not be extractive, and must include mandatory transfer of skills and technology to local workers, create space for Jamaican technical expertise, and include binding corporate social responsibility commitments. The IMAJ argues these commitments must be formalized as legally binding contractual obligations, with public, measurable targets for local employment percentages, local subcontracting requirements, local materials procurement, skills certification outcomes, and community investment. All foreign contractors would also be required to publish annual compliance reports to meet these obligations.

Finally, the IMAJ has formally requested a permanent seat at the table during the policy development process, arguing that any national policy designed to build local contractor capacity that does not include input from the organized construction industry will fail to address the real, on-the-ground constraints that domestic firms face.

A decades-old border dispute between Venezuela and Guyana over the resource-rich Essequibo region has reignited into a new diplomatic row, sparked by a piece of jewelry worn by Venezuela’s acting president Delcy Rodriguez during recent talks with Caribbean community leaders.

The controversy erupted earlier this month, when Rodriguez met with the heads of government of Barbados and Grenada, two member states of the 15-nation Caribbean Community (Caricom). During the meeting, Rodriguez wore a brooch engraved with a map of Venezuela that includes the 159,000-square-kilometer Essequibo region — territory Guyana claims as its own sovereign land.

Soon after the meeting, Guyanese President Irfaan Ali issued a formal statement of grave concern over the symbolic display of Venezuela’s territorial claim. In an April 28 letter addressed to Caricom Chairman Terrance Drew, who also serves as prime minister of St Kitts and Nevis, Ali clarified that Guyana does not oppose any Caricom member state pursuing independent bilateral relations with Venezuela. However, he emphasized that pairing high-level diplomatic engagements with public assertions of territorial claims against another member state was unacceptable.

Caricom later issued a formal statement noting the controversy, reaffirming its longstanding support for Guyana’s position in the border dispute. Senior Guyanese officials have also separately voiced their objection to Rodriguez’s brooch.

But Venezuelan officials have uniformly pushed back against the criticism, framing the backlash as an overreach that questions a core national position. Speaking at an anti-sanctions rally held in Valencia, the capital of Venezuela’s Carabobo state, Rodriguez dismissed the controversy. She said the map on the brooch is the only map of Venezuela her country has ever recognized, and questioned why Guyana would object to the clothing she chooses to wear.

Venezuela will stand firm in its claim to Essequibo, Rodriguez added, ahead of upcoming hearings at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that will hear the merits of the decades-long dispute. “We will soon be at the International Court of Justice in the coming days to reaffirm our historic position, which is aligned with international law and respect for the 1966 Geneva Agreement,” she said. “It is outrageous when Venezuela is attacked, and that is why we are undertaking this entire process for the good of our nation.”

Venezuela’s Foreign Minister Yván Gil doubled down on this position, calling Ali’s public criticism unprecedented. Gil dismissed Ali’s complaints as “improvised shows” and argued that the brooch is merely a public acknowledgment of a longstanding historical truth that has been recognized since the 1966 Geneva Agreement. He added that Guyana’s harsh reaction reflects a desperate, erratic attempt to distract from the core legal issues of the dispute.

Jorge Rodríguez, president of Venezuela’s National Assembly, also defended the country’s position in a post on the social platform X. “We maintain an incontrovertible position on our Guayana Esequiba. It is a historical, legal and moral right; it belongs to all Venezuelan women and men,” he wrote. “Our response remains one of peace diplomacy, but with the firmness of a people that does not renounce its sovereignty.”

The current controversy comes as the decades-long border dispute heads to substantive hearings at the ICJ. The root of the disagreement dates back to the 1899 Arbitral Award, which established the current boundary between the two countries and granted Guyana control over Essequibo. The award stood unchallenged for more than 60 years, until Venezuela declared it null and void in 1962 and revived its claim to the entire region.

In 1966, Venezuela and Guyana (then still a British colony) signed the Geneva Agreement, which established formal mechanisms to pursue a peaceful negotiated settlement to the dispute. When years of bilateral talks failed to produce a resolution, the United Nations Secretary-General referred the case to the ICJ in 2018, after Guyana formally brought the dispute before the court to seek legal confirmation that the 1899 award is fully legally binding.

The ICJ has already issued a preliminary ruling confirming it has jurisdiction to hear the case, clearing the way for upcoming substantive hearings where both sides will present their full legal arguments to settle the dispute once and for all.

A dramatic confrontation in Jamaica’s Parliament has drawn widespread attention after opposition lawmaker Dr. Angela Brown Burke, representative for St Andrew South Western, grabbed the ceremonial mace mid-debate on a major infrastructure bill, resulting in her immediate suspension and formal naming by parliamentary leadership. Days after the incident, Brown Burke has publicly acknowledged her behavior violated established parliamentary rules, while continuing to defend the urgency of the concerns that prompted her extraordinary protest.

The chaos unfolded during an overnight, marathon committee-stage debate on the National Reconstruction and Resilience Authority (NaRRA) Bill, which stretched into the early hours of Wednesday. The legislation, drafted in response to the widespread devastation left by Hurricane Melissa, aims to create a new central body tasked with coordinating post-disaster reconstruction and long-term climate resilience projects. After more than 20 amendments were approved by lawmakers, the bill was ultimately passed in the early hours of the sitting.

From the start of clause-by-clause review, opposition lawmakers raised fierce objections to key provisions of the proposal. The core of their criticism centered on clauses that grant the new authority sweeping, unchecked powers to fast-track project approvals, issue binding directives to government regulatory agencies, and advance large-scale strategic investment projects. Opposition legislators have repeatedly flagged gaps in transparency, weak accountability mechanisms, and concerns over whether the vast spending authorized by the bill—amounting to trillions in public debt that will fall on current and future generations—lacks sufficient oversight safeguards.

Video footage published after the incident shows Brown Burke leaving her seat, approaching the mace— a centuries-old symbol of parliamentary authority and the Speaker’s power to govern proceedings—lifting it from its ceremonial position, and returning to her seat while some fellow opposition lawmakers reacted with laughter. Immediately after the act, House Speaker Juliet Holness ordered Brown Burke removed from the chamber, forcing a temporary halt to all proceedings. When the sitting resumed, the Speaker issued a firm warning to all legislators, making clear that interference with the mace would never be tolerated, regardless of the intensity of policy disagreements. “Not even in jest, Member, and not in protest either,” Holness emphasized.

Prime Minister Dr. Andrew Holness also stepped in to call for order, urging members to uphold the dignity of Parliament even amid heated policy debate. “I think what we are witnessing now is a display which when we reflect on this in years to come it will not be amongst our best, and I think the order of the house and dignity of the house must be preserved,” the prime minister stated during the disruption. A motion to suspend Brown Burke for the remainder of the sitting was subsequently brought under parliamentary standing orders, and passed with support from government members, removing her from the chamber for the rest of the debate.

In her first public comments since the incident, released in a video statement to media on Thursday, Brown Burke conceded that her actions fell outside acceptable parliamentary norms. “I start by accepting that my actions on Tuesday did not accord with acceptable parliamentary procedure. I also acknowledge under the circumstances that the decision of the House [to name me] is in keeping with the Standing Orders,” she said.

Despite accepting the punishment, Brown Burke pushed back against attempts to dismiss the broader policy objections that led to the confrontation, arguing the important concerns raised by the opposition should not be overshadowed by the dramatic scenes in the chamber. She emphasized that context is critical to understanding the incident, noting that opposition lawmakers had been unable to get their concerns about unaccountable power and excessive public debt addressed through regular procedural channels.

“I think context matters while we uphold the rules of the House, [and] at the same time I would not want that to distract unduly from the important points that we were making about the lack of transparency and accountability, the kind of unfettered powers that we saw with NaRRA because, you know, it’s trillions of dollars we’re talking about that is a debt to be borne by us and our children and our children and we want to make sure that we are doing it right and that we’re putting in the safeguards that are required,” she explained.

The Commonwealth has named Bruce Golding, a former prime minister of Jamaica, to head its official observer delegation for The Bahamas’ upcoming general election, set to take place on May 12, 2026. The appointment was finalized by Commonwealth Secretary-General Shirley Botchwey, and came in response to a formal invitation extended by Bahamian Prime Minister Philip Davis. Joining Golding on the four-person observer team are three seasoned regional professionals: Josephine Tamai, chief elections officer of Belize; Orin Gordon, an experienced journalist from Guyana; and Estelle Thadea Alaine George, a legal and electoral governance specialist from Saint Lucia. In a public statement released Thursday, Secretary-General Botchwey opened by extending her gratitude to Golding for agreeing to take on the leadership role, and recognized the willingness of all appointed team members to contribute their time and expertise to the mission. Botchwey emphasized in the statement that free, credible, and transparent electoral processes form the bedrock of legitimate democratic governance. She added that independent Commonwealth observation missions serve a critical dual purpose: they strengthen public trust in national electoral systems and help member states uphold the democratic commitments they have agreed to as part of the global organization. The entire observer mission will receive operational and logistical support from a supporting team based out of the Commonwealth Secretariat, which will be led by Professor Michelle Scobie, Head and Adviser for Good Offices and the Caribbean and Americas Section. According to the official release, during their deployment in The Bahamas, the observer delegation will monitor every stage of the electoral process, from pre-election preparations to post-vote tabulation, to evaluate whether the poll aligns with the shared democratic standards and values that the Commonwealth of Nations endorses. The team is scheduled to arrive in the country on May 4, just over a week before polling day. Shortly after their arrival, the group will publish a public opening statement that lays out the clear terms of its mandate, as well as the methodology it will use to conduct its independent, impartial assessment of the election.

KINGSTON, Jamaica — In a watershed decision that has reshaped the conversation around environmental governance and constitutional rights in the Caribbean nation, Jamaica’s Constitutional Court has struck down a 2020 environmental permit issued to Bengal Development Limited for a planned limestone mining operation in St Ann’s ecologically fragile Dry Harbour Mountains. The court ruled the permit unconstitutional, void, and legally unenforceable, a decision that has drawn swift praise from opposition leadership.

Omar Newell, the Opposition Spokesperson on Environment and Climate Resilience, framed the ruling as a transformative win not just for local communities, but for all Jamaicans who advocate for a balanced approach to progress that prioritizes environmental protection over unregulated development. Speaking in an official statement released the same day the ruling was handed down, Newell emphasized that the judgment rejects the long-held narrative that economic growth must come at the cost of public health, natural ecosystems, and constitutionally protected rights.

What makes this legal outcome particularly historic is that it marks the first time Jamaica’s judiciary has adjudicated on the environmental rights clause enshrined in the country’s Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms, setting a binding precedent that will shape future environmental legal battles across the island.

Newell reaffirmed that his party, the People’s National Party (PNP), has stood in firm opposition to the mining project since its earliest stages. As far back as November 2020, the PNP publicly denounced the then-administration’s plan to issue a provisional mining permit, sounding the alarm over the severe risks the project posed to the Dry Harbour Mountains — one of Jamaica’s most ecologically sensitive regions, home to unique biodiversity and critical watershed systems that supply water to communities across the area.

“This historic ruling affirms that every person in Jamaica holds a constitutional right to a healthy and productive environment,” Newell said. “This judgment belongs to the residents of St Ann, who showed immense courage in standing up to powerful interests to protect their homes and way of life. It is a victory for every Jamaican who believes in sustainable development, open governance, and accountability from our public institutions.”

Beyond celebrating the ruling, Newell used the moment to highlight a critical gap in Jamaica’s environmental regulatory framework. The judgment, he argued, lays bare the urgent need for stronger, politically independent environmental oversight that can make decisions based on scientific evidence rather than political pressure.

“Jamaica can no longer rely on ministerial discretion to safeguard our natural heritage. We need an independent environmental protection agency, fully empowered to make evidence-based decisions that serve the national interest,” Newell explained. “Our environmental future, and the natural resources we leave for coming generations, depend on building strong, credible institutions with the authority to protect what matters most to all Jamaicans.”