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.

Late on Tuesday, a chaotic confrontation over a critical piece of government legislation disrupted proceedings in Jamaica’s House of Representatives, resulting in the suspension of opposition Member of Parliament Angela Brown Burke, who represents St Andrew South Western. The incident unfolded during a Committee of the Whole House sitting, where lawmakers were conducting a line-by-line review of the National Reconstruction and Resilience Authority (NaRRA) Bill, a flagship policy proposal from the current administration.

Tensions that had been simmering during debate on the divisive bill boiled over into open disorder, with the confrontation centering on the parliamentary mace — the centuries-old ceremonial object that embodies the constitutional authority of Jamaica’s legislature. After Brown Burke engaged in an incident involving the mace, Speaker of the House Juliet Holness initiated formal disciplinary proceedings by “naming” the MP, a procedural step reserved for cases of gross disorderly conduct under parliamentary rules.

Citing Standing Order 43, Subsection 2, which requires lawmakers found guilty of grossly disorderly behavior to leave the chamber for the rest of the sitting, Holness ordered parliamentary marshals to escort Brown Burke out of the building. The opposition MP repeatedly refused to comply with the Speaker’s instructions, attempting to argue her case before being cut off, and proceedings were brought to an abrupt standstill as marshals moved to enforce the order.

Leader of Government Business Floyd Green quickly introduced a formal motion to confirm Brown Burke’s suspension for the remainder of the day’s sitting, which passed along party lines with the government’s majority approving the measure. In remarks after order was temporarily paused, Speaker Holness emphasized that any attempt to touch or grab the mace — regardless of whether it was done in jest or protest — crosses an unacceptable line in parliamentary procedure.

“Member, at no time can you grab the mace in Parliament. Not even in jest, member. And not in protest either,” Holness told the MP, stressing the symbolic weight of the object to the institution’s integrity. She later reminded all assembled lawmakers that parliamentary rules are not trivial, and disciplinary procedures are in place to protect the dignity of the body.

After the confrontation, the sitting was paused for five minutes to allow tempers to cool, and Brown Burke ultimately left the chamber before lawmakers resumed their deliberations on the bill. Prime Minister Andrew Holness called for calm once proceedings restarted, noting that the disruptive scene would not be remembered as one of parliament’s finest moments, and stressing that the order and dignity of the institution must be protected at all times.

The NaRRA Bill at the center of the tension is a key policy priority for the Jamaican government. If passed, it will establish the National Reconstruction and Resilience Authority, a centralized body tasked with coordinating post-disaster reconstruction and long-term national resilience-building efforts to respond to major emergencies ranging from hurricanes to public health crises. The legislation has already sparked sharp division among both lawmakers and the Jamaican public, with disagreements over its scope and implementation driving tense debate throughout the legislative process.

KINGSTON, Jamaica — A fiery parliamentary dispute has erupted in Jamaica following an extraordinary incident during a debate on critical hurricane recovery legislation, with the ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) issuing a harsh rebuke of opposition Member of Parliament Angela Brown Burke. The controversy stems from Brown Burke’s physical contact with the ceremonial mace during a Committee of the Whole House sitting convened to review clauses of the National Reconstruction and Resilience Authority (NaRRA) Bill.

In an official press statement released Wednesday, the JLP emphasized that interfering with the mace during parliamentary proceedings constitutes a flagrant violation of the legislature’s Standing Orders, qualifying as overt disorderly conduct. Across all Commonwealth parliamentary systems, the JLP noted, the act of touching or tampering with the ceremonial mace during an official committee sitting is recognized as a severe breach of parliamentary privilege and long-standing procedural etiquette. Standard protocol for such a violation, the party added, typically warrants immediate suspension, expulsion from the parliamentary chamber, and potential further disciplinary action.

The ceremonial mace, the JLP explained, stands as a tangible symbol of the inherent authority of the Speaker of the House and the Jamaican Parliament as a whole. Any deliberate interference with the object is therefore legally and procedurally classified as contempt of Parliament, a serious charge against any sitting legislator.

The controversy does not end with the mace incident, according to the ruling party. After Speaker Juliet Holness named Brown Burke for her conduct and issued an order suspending her for the remainder of the sitting, the MP initially refused to comply with the directive to leave the chamber. This act of defiance, the JLP confirmed, represents a second distinct breach of parliamentary Standing Orders.

Senator Abka Fitz-Henley, JLP Communication Chairman, framed the incident as an unacceptable attack on the integrity of parliamentary business. “MP Brown Burke’s conduct in disrupting the sitting of the House of Representatives is unacceptable and a disgrace,” Fitz-Henley said in the statement. “Her action was a clear attempt to disrupt the business of the Parliament, which was in the process of treating with a Bill, which is crucial to assist Jamaicans to recover from the devastating impact of Hurricane Melissa.”

Fitz-Henley also extended criticism to Brown Burke’s colleagues in the opposition People’s National Party (PNP), accusing the party of enabling the disorder. When the order to expel Brown Burke was issued, PNP MPs stood between the opposition legislator and parliamentary officials to block her departure from the chamber. The ruling party spokesman called this collective action proof that the PNP cannot be trusted to conduct the nation’s public business in a responsible, appropriate manner. He also took aim at PNP leader and opposition chief Mark Golding, arguing that Golding’s failure to immediately intervene to force Brown Burke to comply with procedural rules was entirely consistent with the party’s pattern of poor conduct.

The incident capped off a chaotic late-night session at Jamaica’s Gordon House, the seat of the country’s parliament, deepening partisan tensions ahead of further consideration of the NaRRA Bill.

On Wednesday, the deeply divided U.S. Supreme Court convened to hear legal challenges to the Trump administration’s 2019 order to revoke Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, for hundreds of thousands of Haitian and Syrian migrants currently residing in the United States. The high-stakes case has far-reaching ramifications for more than one million TPS beneficiaries from a dozen additional nations who now face the threat of mass deportation.

Created as a humanitarian protection program, TPS shields eligible migrants from deportation and grants them work authorization, granted exclusively to people who cannot safely return to their home countries due to active armed conflict, natural disaster, or other extraordinary, life-threatening crises. Haitian nationals first gained TPS eligibility in 2010, after a magnitude 7 earthquake killed more than 200,000 people and leveled much of the country’s critical infrastructure. More than a decade later, the Caribbean nation remains mired in systemic extreme poverty, widespread gang-related violence and kidnapping, chronic political collapse, and a shattered healthcare system that prompted the U.S. State Department to issue a Level 4: Do Not Travel advisory for all American citizens. Syria obtained TPS in 2012 at the outbreak of its ongoing devastating civil war, which has left the country fragmented and unsafe for returning civilians.

As part of his broader hardline immigration agenda, former President Donald Trump made a 2016 campaign pledge to remove millions of undocumented migrants from the U.S., and made dismantling the longstanding TPS program a central policy priority. Since taking office, his administration revoked TPS protections for migrants from 12 countries beyond Haiti and Syria, including Afghanistan, Myanmar, Somalia, Venezuela, and Yemen.

During Wednesday’s arguments, Solicitor General John Sauer, representing the Trump administration, told the court that the Department of Homeland Security’s TPS termination decision falls under executive authority and is not eligible for judicial review. Sauer argued that barring courts from reviewing such policy choices prevents inappropriate “judicial micromanagement” of executive-led foreign policy, and added that Trump’s past controversial remarks about Haiti were being taken out of context. He claimed the president’s comments, in which he referred to Haiti and other African nations as “shithole countries” and expressed a preference for migrants from Norway over Haiti, were referencing “problems of crime, poverty and welfare dependency” rather than expressing racial bias.

Counsel for the Haitian and Syrian TPS holders pushed back forcefully against the administration’s arguments, arguing that unsafe conditions in both home countries remain unchanged, and that the TPS cancellation was driven at least partially by explicit racial animus. Ahilan Arulanantham, an attorney for the Syrian TPS petitioners, emphasized that the case centers on “the power to mass expel people who have done nothing wrong to countries that remain unsafe.” Liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor echoed this concern during questioning, directly referencing Trump’s reported comments about Haiti to question whether discriminatory intent motivated the policy.

Early indications from the court’s ideological split suggest the six-member conservative majority leans toward siding with the Trump administration’s position, while the court’s three liberal justices appear ready to oppose the move. A final ruling from the court will set a binding precedent that shapes the future of TPS for all beneficiaries across the country.