POST CABINET REPORT- January 29, 2025
Minister Dr. Dana Morris-Dixon
Good morning everyone and welcome to our next edition of the post-cabinet press briefing. Today is Wednesday, January 29 and our two guests this morning are two of my favorite ministers. We have the Honorable Aubyn Hill, Minister of Industry, Investment and Commerce, and yes you can tell the others that I said that, and also the Honorable Robert Nesta Morgan, our Minister of Responsibility for Works in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation.
We also have a number of other guests in the room that I need to acknowledge. We have Mrs. Sancia Bennett-Templer, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Industry, Investment and Commerce, and I got a long list of heads of agencies from the ministry are here and our head of the company’s office is here. I see JBDC’s head here and I am told there are others that will be here from the Ministry of Industry, Investment and Commerce.
Also we have members of the academic community, also members of the culture sector, the private sector, the MSME sector here with us this morning, as well as students from the University of Technology and the University of the West Indies. So it’s a nice mix of individuals here listening to our post-cabinet press briefing. It’s really good to have all of them there here with us and also any of our specially invited guests, Jamaicans who are watching at home and abroad, a wonderful good morning to you again.
Today I’m gonna start with just a few highlights for you and I know some of these may come up in the presentations. The first one obviously is a very, very joyful one in relation to the unemployment rate, which has fallen to a record low of 3.5 percent and I know many of us would have never, ever expected to see that kind of a number in relation to Jamaica’s unemployment rate, but that rate continues to decline and we saw that the labor force grew significantly and that the participation rate in the economy, in the labor force, also increased significantly and we saw big numbers in terms of the men, but Minister Hill is gonna talk a lot about that reduction in the unemployment rate. Yesterday also our Prime Minister, Dr. the Most Honorable Andrew Holness, announced a $315 million program to further support roofing repairs for most vulnerable Jamaicans who were affected by Hurricane Beryl.
We know what Hurricane Beryl did. It was devastating and it affected many different sectors of the economy. We saw the impact it had on agriculture. Many of you still, you know, we can’t get the right bananas that we want. That’s still a problem. We can’t get many of the produce that we want because we’ve not recovered as yet from Hurricane Beryl.
Hurricane Beryl was truly devastating. We had many of our schools that were impacted by it and we had to do significant repair work there and so too did many of our vulnerable Jamaicans get affected by this hurricane and so the administration, we’re always looking at how we can enhance the quality of life of our citizens and especially those who are the most vulnerable and so this recent allocation is a direct investment in the well-being of thousands of Jamaicans who absolutely need it the most and so this initiative is not just about fixing the roof or roofs around the country or reinforcing structures. It’s actually much more than that.
These grants and when you think about it, think about our elderly Jamaicans who have gone through a lot in their life, who’ve worked hard, who have helped to build our country and having to live with that kind of damage to their roof and have water coming in on them. That’s not something that as an administration we ever want to see and so for us, these grants are not just about fixing the roof. These grants are about providing dignity, stability and safety to families who are disproportionately affected by economic hardship and of course these climate change related extreme weather events.
One of the things we want to talk about a little bit more going forward will be the changes in our weather patterns. Just this week in cabinet we received a report from the Planning Institute of Jamaica on that and the impact of all of these weather related phenomena on us because it’s both drought and flooding and hurricanes and so it really does have an impact on a lot of our Jamaicans and as an administration we believe that it is important to care about those who need us the most and this three hundred and fifteen million dollar program is our signal of that compassionate government that we always strive to be. In addition to that I would note that that 2,500 residents are to benefit from a seventy-five million Jackson Town pipeline project water, water, water.
We are always looking at water and Minister Abb is not here but Minister Samuda every single week in cabinet is talking about his water projects and how much more money he wants for water. We understand how important water is to Jamaicans and so this is a really important project and there are many others going on, but I highlight that one because this is the most recent one and so Minister Samuda broke ground for the Jackson Town pipeline project which will improve water supply and distribution to many areas. Jackson Town, Barron Stable, Bidford, Bottom Common, Grove, First Hill, Stewart Hall, many other areas and this project is expected to be completed within three months so it’s not a long-term projects but within three months and it will involve the laying of one and a half kilometers of iron pipe and that’s really going to assist many Jamaicans who really need to have that access to water.
In terms of other updates that I will go through there’s also the rolling out of our citrus revitalization project which was announced by the Honorable Floyd Green another area of agriculture that we’re focusing on in his New Year’s message our Prime Minister spoke to a 1 billion dollar investment in agriculture that is very real because we understand the importance of agriculture to the Jamaican economy and when you look at our economic numbers after burial we all know what happened to agriculture anytime agriculture is affected it has an impact on GDP. We also know if you want to have economic growth in your country what do you do? One of the quick ones for a country like Jamaica is to focus on agriculture so agriculture is really central and this work across many areas is very important to us and I know Minister Hill is one of the big advocates of the agricultural sector and also linking it back into manufacturing and he’s been a big champion of a lot of these agriculture initiatives. Another one linked to Minister Hill, HEART NSTA Trust has been providing millions in grant assistance to MSMEs.
When we think of HEART, we think of training but there’s also an entrepreneurial element to it. Many of our young people at HEART when you talk to them they tell you they want to start their business and so at HEART what we’ve been looking at is not just incorporating entrepreneurial classes into the curriculum but we’re also supporting them as they start their businesses and so the HEART NSTA Trust has provided grants to several entrepreneurs in the 24-25 financial year. They’ve actually given out over 21 million dollars in grants to micro, small and medium-sized enterprises and this ensures sustained financial support to empower entrepreneurs and during this period 245 entrepreneurs received grant funding.
This is not a loan; this is a grant. We’re saying we believe in you, you’re young, you have great ideas and your ideas matter and we want to see you thrive in your business and so we’ve given these grants because we want them to use it to build their business and it’s very hard when you’re starting. When you’re young and starting out you don’t have any family to give you capital. It’s really hard and so we understand that and that’s why we’ve done these grants and of the 245, a hundred were trainee startup grants, 13 MSME grants, 32 incubators and 100 Rural Youth Economic Empowerment Program participants. So those are persons who are in our rural areas and we’re doing work specifically with them and that’s really, really important that we don’t just support individuals, young people who are in the corporate area. There are many doing fantastic things in our rural areas and that’s what we’re doing and we’re planning to do many more of these grants across the country and I’ll stop there in terms of the updates.
Minister Robert Nesta Morgan
Morning everyone. Before I go I just need to acknowledge Minister Malahoo Forte who is here. She has joined us this morning. It’s so good to see you as always and she is going to be available to the media also to take questions after we’re finished with the presentations. Thank you.
I’d like to thank my favorite minister for, I didn’t call any names, for being here allowing me to be here this morning. Thank you to everyone who is in attendance, the media, members of the public service as well as those who are watching and listening online and also on public broadcasting portals. I’m here this morning to give an update on some important matters that have taken place in the portfolio which I have been given responsibility to oversee.
Primarily a new bridge program which was announced recently as well as an update on the REACH road rehabilitation program as well as the REACH Emergency Road Rehabilitation Program. Persons would remember that the Prime Minister announced in September of last year based on the tremendous damage that was done by the country’s, to the country’s road infrastructure, that we would have a REACH road rehabilitation program which was a three-billion-dollar program. I can announce that a majority of the money allocated for the September to December period of that program has been spent and members of Parliament as well as the National Works Agency are now procuring the amount to be spent for the period of January to March 2025 which will total approximately in all three billion dollars.
The REACH normal rehabilitation program focuses on community roads which are in need of patching, it’s a patching program, as well as some roads, some main roads. The big one however which everyone is talking about which you have seen across the island taking place over the last month or so is the Emergency REACH Program and this was a two-billion-dollar road rehabilitation program. It’s not patching really but there’s a lot of sheeting taking place especially on places like East Kings House Road.
We’re doing major repairs in Tavistock which was damaged due to the actions of others who will at this time remain nameless. But the twelve-billion-dollar program was approved for an emergency, to an emergency system and fourteen grade one contractors were engaged. I would like to give an update as to some of the areas that we have done and where we are.
So for Kingston and St. Andrew which is, the contractor is ACE, which is one of the packages is ACE, which is a hundred and fifty million dollars. We’re 50% complete. Some of the roads that were done include Port Royal Street, Mullions Road, Shortwood Road, Weymouth Drive, Duhaney Drive, Bay Farm Road, Mannings Hill Road, Constance Spring Road, Caledonia, Duhaney Drive, Abberville, Eastwood Park Road, Kesha Park Road and Burlington Avenue and that’s 50% complete.
We also have the second package for Kingston and St. Andrew which is done by J&L which is 35% complete. Michael Manley Boulevard, east and westbound, you know that road from the Harbour View roundabout up to where you, I think it’s Flour Mills and then you take the right turn on to another road that joins you on to Mountain View. It’s a major thoroughfare for persons coming from the airport.
We’re currently in the process of doing Mountain View Avenue but I can report on Michael Manley Boulevard and I think some people confuse it with Florizel Glass Bowl. I think there’s a there’s a there’s a part where it transitions from Florizel to Michael Manley but that is done. Mountain View Avenue, Old Oak Road, you would know that infamous pothole beside Sovereign Centre at the stoplight. That has been fixed. We have done Ellison Road, Lindsay Crescent, West Avenue where Macau is.
There were a lot of comments online because that road is a bypass of Dunrobin. Instead of going up to Dunrobin you take West Avenue and it drops you out right in the vicinity of Oakland. We are also looking to do more work in Portmore, Port Henderson Bayside, Naggo Head, Portmore Parkway and so on.
That Portmore side is 10% complete and we are also doing work in Clarendon where the road, Bustamante Highway as well as Manchester Avenue and the road known as the four-pass road is being done as well as Whitney Turn, Cave Valley, Kupuis, Summerfield, May Pen to Soursop Turn and so on. Also Freetown, Fogar Road to Milk River. Those are some of the roads that is 30% complete. That’s for Clarendon.
Manchester and St. Elizabeth are also on the agenda and I can give updates on that. We also have Westmoreland which is being done by Cenitech.
We also have St. James, which is being done by Odane Allen Construction, Hanover, Smith’s Asphalt, St. Ann, Stone Plus which is 77% complete. I know that Ocho Rios Main Road is one of the big ones and they’re almost complete with St. Ann. St. Thomas is 60% complete, Poor Man’s Corner, Easington, Petersfield, Bull Bay, Grants Pen, Golden Grove and so on have been done.
Rural St. Andrew is 35% complete. Rural St. Andrew is basically two constituencies, East Rural and West Rural. That is 35% complete and we also have some special roads that we are focusing on.
Mona from the aqueduct to UWI gate. We’re doing some work there as well. We’ve gotten a lot of complaints about that.
We’ve also done Millsborough Avenue which is a road that we’ve gotten a lot of complaints on. We’re supposed to do some further work on Barbican. There’s a contention that we should not have repaired Barbican Square. We did not have a choice. It was a contractual obligation of the contractor in a thing called defects liability. So the contractor built something and if they notice or we notice that what they built is flawed then based on the contract that was signed for the MIDP project which was many years ago they are obligated to fix it. So those who are saying why them dig up Barbican. The government did not dig up Barbican. It did not cost the government a dollar.
It was the contractor who had an obligation to correct what they built which had flaws. So the public can be assured that it did not cost taxpayers any money. I want to also give an update as to some of the major projects that we’re doing in a thing called the CAPEX program.
Grange Lane which is the first one to start is almost complete. It will be finished in March of this year. East Kings Road to Lady Musgrave will begin in this quarter which is between now and March based on what we’ve seen here.
We have finished the engineering designs, feasibility studies and we’re now in the procurement and contract award. Let me correct that. Quarter 2 of 2025-2026 is when it will start.
There’s also Braeton to Hillshire Main Road which is gonna start in and around this period. Arthur Wint Camp Road, Tom Redcomb Drive will start in this financial year. There’s a new entry to Portmore.
You guys know the major traffic that is caused in the evenings right at that left turn to go onto the Dyke Road. We’re gonna build a new entry to Portmore and that should start in this financial year as well which will be of significant benefit to those going towards Spanish Town or towards the North-South Highway as well as those turning left to go to Portmore. And there’s also plans to expand the bridge over the Sandy Gully.
That’s the bridge on the boulevard where the road converts from I think four lanes to a smaller amount of lanes. That is supposed to start this financial year as well. So that’s just an update on CAPEX.
There’s also an update on major highways which we are doing. Persons would be aware that the government is now through the contract to China Harbor building the Montego Bay Perimeter Road. That road is 55% complete and one of the major pieces of that infrastructure which is the Montego River Bridge which is the largest bridge in Jamaica currently is 90% complete.
And we’ve also added the Long Hill Bypass to that. That has started and it’s on schedule for completion in 2026. There’s also plans to do the South St. Elizabeth Extension which will be from Williams Field to Hodges and that is in the design phase.
There’s also plans to do the North-South Highway expansion which is from Mammee Bay to St. James which is a four-lane highway to support economic and tourism growth. This project will be tendered this financial year. And also we will be very shortly bringing to Cabinet I think is the Port Antonio Bypass which will bypass the entire town of Port Antonio which will give you a more ease of movement between the east of the island and the north of the island.
That is to come to Cabinet very shortly. I want to finally mention the bridge program which is an announcement that was made recently at the British High Commission. This program is a 55-bridge program and it’s basically 100 million US dollars.
The program is aimed at repairing several pieces of well several bridges that are in a state of disrepair. I would like to just read a little bit of the background. 40% of Jamaica’s population live in rural areas and are served by roads and bridges that have been in service for over a century.
A good example of that would be the Troy Bridge which was over 100 years old and collapsed due to old age. Many of these have not been updated to current loads and traffic requirements and are heavily affected by climate change, heavy rainfall and flooding as well as natural disasters. The government of Jamaica has recognized that durable high-quality climate resilient infrastructure plays a vital role in poverty alleviation and is critically critical for sustainable economic growth.
As such we have been consistently exploring opportunities to create high-impact projects for the benefit of communities and the wider population. One of those high-impact projects is the Accelerated Rural Bridge Development Program which is to install a range of permanent vehicular and pedestrian bridges in strategic areas across the island. This program is led by the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation which is a ministry of which I am a part and is being implemented by the National Works Agency.
The bridges that will be repaired will be published soon. It’s 55 bridges from all across the island and many persons have been extremely excited at the possibility that one of the bridges in their community will be a part of it. I can just give you just a tease of some of the bridges.
Rio Cobre, Irrigation Canal Bridge, Bushy Park Bridge, Richmond Prison Bridge, Eden Bridge, Silver Hill Bridge, Wakesfield Bridge, Bybrook Bridge, Sheephole Bridge, Rock Bridge which is in Trelawny. About six bridges in St. Thomas including Easington, Ramble, Shooting River and so on. You have also bridges in St. Elizabeth, YS Bridge, Windsor Bridge, St. James has some as well, Crooked Bridge, Blackshot Bridge and I’m not naming all of them. I’m just giving you a sampling. Westmoreland First Bridge, Jakas Bridge, Hanover Guinea Bridge and so on. So there are over 50 bridges that will be built. It is a build and install project. The bridges will not be built in Jamaica. The company will be building and installing the bridges.
So it’s a much quicker and easier project to implement than the standard approach that we usually take towards the procurement of major infrastructure works. Before I go I would like to update you on SPARK which is my last update. As you know the SPARK program, the building phase, persons are of the assumption that SPARK started in December. That is not correct. SPARK started the minute we started the procurement which was in May of 2024 which is one of the fastest procurements for such a major project in the history of the country. 45 billion dollars plus money for pipes.
So SPARK has started the build-out phase at Harbour Heights in East Kingston and Port Royal. By the end, by next week, we’ll be announcing 40 roads which will begin immediately all across the island for SPARK. And a month after that we’ll be announcing another 30 roads.That’s 70. And in a month after that we’ll be announcing another 30 roads. That’s 100.
So by the end of the financial year we would have started 100 roads across the island. Why persons ask has the SPARK taken some time to ignite? The reason is that we are not going to be wasting taxpayers money. We have to do the proper designs.
We have to do the proper assessment of the roads. There are some roads that require land acquisition. There are some roads that require extensive pipe works. There are some roads that require realignment. A lot of us know the history of our roads. Most of our roads evolved from community tracks where persons moved to particular areas and they built their own roads and somebody came many years later and gave them a road without any design or anything.
Some of these are flaws that we have to correct as we had to do on the South Coast Highway Improvement Project. So by March almost every constituency in the country will see roadworks taking place. By the middle of this month you’ll see an activation across about 40 areas within the country where SPARK roads will be being implemented.
Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen for having me this morning. Thanks to the wonderful Dr. Dana Morris-Dixon for inviting me to this post-cabinet press briefing. It’s always good to have you here.
You heard that 100 roads before the end of the financial year which is in March. It is so clear that we are seeing a really different Jamaica in terms of infrastructure and putting the money where we need to which is in roads or people have said they want roads and Minister Morgan is delivering on the roads and I have to thank you. I’m happy every time I see the crews fixing the roads.
I’m gonna open it up to media so I’m gonna hand over to you Naomi. Good morning Minister thank you so much. Ministers thank you for joining us.
Question and Answer Segment
In terms of the REACH patching program, is there a quality assurance element? Persons online have quoted or have highlighted two roads, Foga Road to Milk River, that, is that Milk River? Yes, that they are seeing some holes, all the potholes have been patched there and some in the Duhaney Park area. So we had an issue initially where, due to the shortage of resources, some contractors decided to patch the major potholes and leave the baby ones.
Everybody knows that babies eventually become adults, so the Prime Minister has given an instruction that when you’re on a road, it’s best to patch all the potholes where you can, rather than skipping, and that’s something that we have asked the public. If you see any issues related to quality, you can send a picture of it to “Ask SPARK” on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and also you can text me, WhatsApp me, tweet me, and we will make sure that those issues are fixed. So just anyone who has any issues with quality, they can reach out to us and we’ll ensure.
We’ve gotten a lot of help from the public in terms of quality. The public has been very interested in the Road Rehabilitation Program, and I cannot count the amount of calls and messages that I have received personally with persons raising concerns and asking for intervention. And that’s a good thing, it’s a good partnership between the government and the citizenry.
We are the ones who allocate the funding, but it is actually your money that we’re spending, and the fact that so many persons are interested in how their money is being spent and the quality of the work that is being done is actually commendable. Thanks Naomi. So it’s AskSpark, am I correct? That hashtag that they should use on social media? I can tell you right now.
We launched a Twitter page, well social media accounts for Spark, but we’re also using it to get information on the REACH program, and it’s our AskSparkJamaica at Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok. And if you send a DM, we will respond. All right, thank you minister.
Good morning everybody. Mahiri Stewart, Nationwide News here.
Minister Morgan, how much has the recent clear-up of weather helped in the different works projects that the government has undertaken, and how much farther do you think the government could have been without these delays? Well, it can’t patch a road in rain. It’s a logical conclusion, and we, and I suspect we probably shouldn’t have, attempted in September, October to patch the roads in rains. And that those patched areas did not do as well as we would have wanted them to be.
And we gave an instruction to the entity that we should pause the patching as much as we wanted to give the public the relief. The fact is that the same public is going to be very critical when they see their money being wasted in potholes that have returned weeks after because they were patched in rain. Several of our contractors lost tens of tons of asphalt due to the rains when they were trying to patch.
So if we never had the rain, and Minister Samuda will tell you that the rainfall received between June and December of last year was the most significant in probably 30 years. And the Prime Minister in his presentation last week had up the graphics that showed that almost every parish in the island had significantly more rainfall than their average rainfall over the last 30 years. What that did to us is not only did it degrade our infrastructure, many of which are at end-of-life, but it also prevented us from intervening in repairing infrastructure.
So you would have noticed I watched Grants Pen Road deteriorate over three weeks. So Grants Pen Road was in reasonable condition between the stoplight and Barbican, and within three weeks it was almost destroyed. And we wanted to go to Grants Pen Road and repair it because Grants Pen Road is a very important connector between Constance Spring Road and Barbican and Liguanea.
A lot of persons do not want to drive through half a tree, so they turn either through the gully or through Stratford Road and they go through Grants Pen Road and go to Utech Papine. But we could not repair it because it rained. Thankfully the rain ended and in December, late December, early January, we were able to mill and pave, which is basically remove all the asphalt off the top layer and replace that. So yes, the rains did delay us by several months in trying to repair the roads. I don’t know if I have answered your question appropriately. Second question now.
So you made a post about cement being used to fill potholes in Summerfield despite patching being set for that area. How much of an issue does an instance like this cause in terms of carrying out that exercise and what’s your advice to residents or MPs in terms of following the ministry’s repair schedule and maybe not taking matters into their own hands? So cement roads are actually good roads. They are much more expensive to make, and you have to know where exactly you’re putting them because they don’t work everywhere.
So for example, we put cement in Grants Pen. We are going to put cement at Charlton, Gully and so on. That works because there is constant traffic.
There is not an opportunity for flora to grow on it to make it slippery because there’s always movement. There are some areas that are very wet that if you put cement on it and there’s not a lot of traffic then it becomes slippery and dangerous. It’s not a good idea to patch roads with cement as a long-term fix because asphalt is an elastic product, meaning it expands and contracts.
Cement is not elastic. So when you patch a road with cement, you’re putting an inelastic product against an elastic product. One is moving, one is not moving, which means that the pothole now becomes bigger because the asphalt is now going to expand and contract beside the cement.
And so I am not going to tell persons in their communities that if they see a pothole and they don’t think it’s gonna be fixed for a long time to not try to help themselves. I could never say that. But if you know that we’re coming to patch the road, as is the case in some of you, which is in my constituency, there’s no point in cementing the hole a week before because what you do is you’re forcing the contractor now to spend more time to dig out that cement to put in asphalt because you cannot patch a road that has cement in the pothole.
It’s a very interesting conundrum we face where persons want to self-help, but in some cases I think there are powers that are seeking to influence persons in a negative way. For example, we’ve seen persons know that we’re gonna be repairing a road on Monday and they demonstrate about the road on Friday. You know, we’ve seen that happening in the Eastern in Hanover and a lot of it is political and we understand that we’re in a particular season, but my job as the minister is that until nomination day I have a duty to perform and I have to maintain that duty regardless of what is happening out there in the political atmosphere.
Right, so the public can go on sparkjamaica.gov.jm which is the website that we have created to give you all the information on SPARK and REACH It has preliminarily the roads, the 600 and other roads that are to be repaired. It also has preliminarily the main roads and we’re going to be placing the governance framework which will govern Spark on the sparkjamaica.gov.jm website. Additionally, for those who wish to send pictures, ask questions, raise issues, you can go to asksparkjamaica. We’re on Twitter, we’re on Facebook, we’re on TikTok, we’re on all the other social media platforms. We don’t plan to ban TikTok in Jamaica so they don’t have to worry. So yes, so for those who wish to engage with us, we’re very responsive because we do actually appreciate when members of the public gives us the information as we’re not able to be everywhere at the same time Naomi.
Thank you so much minister, really appreciate it. Thank you very much. Thank you, Dana, and thanks to you all for listening.
Thank you very much. That was really good and I liked when you talked about the road surface and you were going into the science, it means that you know our education system didn’t fail you and I’m very happy for that. Clarendon and the schools there did a very good job with you and I’m very pleased about that.
We’re now going to move on to the wonderful Minister of Industry, Investment and Commerce, the Honorable Aubyn Hill and he’s here with some individuals and I had just said generally who they were earlier and I’d acknowledge the PS, but he has the head of JAMPRO, Mrs. Chaudette Cox, the head of our company’s Office of Jamaica, Ms. Shelley Leon, the acting CEO of Jamaica International Financial Services Association, Mr. Ricky Davis here too and Mr. Harold Davis, our JBDC head, I also saw in the audience. He always comes with a lot of backing when he comes to Post Cab. You don’t need it, you know, but it’s good to see your heads of agencies supporting you in this wonderful way.
So please welcome the Honorable Aubyn Hill. Thank you all so much. This morning, always good to be here.
Minister Aubyn Hill
My colleague Minister Robert Nester Morgan, my other colleague Minister Mrs. Marlene Malahoo Forte, the Constitutional Lady, my host this morning, Minister Dana Morris Dixon over there running education. I always love to give out her budget number. It’s a hundred and sixty three billion dollars.
Now the Minister of Finance has some more, but you know why they have more? Because they pay the interest and the loans. The operating budget of the Minister of Finance is significantly lower than that of the Minister of Education. In other words, the Jamaican government uses a lot of your taxpayer money to make sure we educate our people and we have to educate them to a better level.
And Minister Morris Dixon is going to squeeze a lot more out of that 163 billion dollars. I’m happy to talk to you this morning. I’m going to start off on something that is really positive.
Recently, the Conference Board of Jamaica, which operates out of the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce, paid Don Anderson to do the normal consumer and business confidence survey. The last one that was done was for the period October to December of 2024. We just heard Minister Morgan talk about the effect of rain and yes, we saw where the Prime Minister showed how much more rain we’ve had. Hurricane Beryl hit on July 3rd. On July 4th, I was in St. Elizabeth. I was in Manchester parts of it to see what had happened.
I went to Lover’s Leap, which is sort of where the closest edge of the hotel, sorry, the hurricane hit and roofs, you could see the roofs gone off. You walk in the people’s house, nothing, just a roof. You can see all the stars in the heaven in the middle of the day when the sun was shining. Roofs were gone. So we could see that. Many people, though, are forgetting.
They’ve just heard the PIOJ’s report on the last quarter and yes, the economy, the GDP has fallen, but they do not use context. So I’m going to put that in context for you. As you’ve heard, we’ve had more rain since Beryl came, even before in June, but really since Beryl came on July 3rd to December than we’ve had in 30 years.
You must expect that and especially it hit the farming belt of the country. St. Elizabeth, Manchester, Clarendon and Westmoreland to a certain extent and that reduced a great deal of our agricultural production, which is a major part of when I came to the government in 2016. I got the numbers, these same kind of numbers, and agriculture had done well the quarter before and the next quarter agriculture dropped by 10-15 percent.
The GDP is gone because agriculture and mining, mining of course, had to take a back seat as well because the rains were there. You couldn’t mine. So out of that, you will hear people say, oh Jamaica, we didn’t get the kind of economic growth where we got a lot of rain.
And for all intents and purposes, we are not at all yet responsible for rain. We haven’t had the technology and we haven’t been blessed with the miracle. So we still have to work with what we work with. And that then brings me to the point that in spite of all that stuff, you will hear that the economy didn’t grow as much as we expected. What did we see? Business confidence in that October to December period last year grew by 12.9 percent. Very high.
In fact, a steady quarter and quarter increase and a 7.3 percent year-over-year increase, the highest level of recorded business confidence since quarter two of 2019. In other words, since before COVID-19. So every time they bring up this thing, we go and bring up the business confidence. But you know what I find? The consumer confidence grew by 4 percent. Substantial. And you know, we had profits. Business expected their profits to grow by 15 points from 158 points to 173 points in the fourth quarter of 2024. Amazing. But you know, I couldn’t find anything. Forget a headline. That kind of stuff is good news. You think you can find it in the newspaper? Don’t. Can’t find a headline. I look for it. Can’t find it.
In these reports, there was not one mention of corruption or scandal. So I couldn’t find it. Maybe that’s why I couldn’t find the newspapers. But luckily, social media carried it. The Ministry of Industry, Investment, Commerce carried it. Many of our agencies practically all repeated it.
So we got the message out a bit. But I want Jamaica to understand that the confidence in this country is really very high. Business people, you look at how much last year, Wisyco invested 11.3 billion dollars in Jamaica. CB poultry business, chicken business, you know it very well. They invested what we estimate to be about 15 billion dollars in that wonderful state-of-the-art manufacturing business that they opened two or three weeks ago. Amazing. Listen to me, if you haven’t gone out there, you drive past and if the gate is open, try and get in there and go and look. Because anytime I have a foreign visitor coming from overseas and I want them to see what Jamaican manufacturing is looking like and what it can be, I’m taking them to CB chickens, new manufacturing plant. It’s 450,000 square feet, I think it is.
It’s on a thousand acres, 15 billion dollars invested. And fosterage is doing the same thing, making pipes and exporting it. So business confidence is strong. That’s a good place I wanted to start. And so because it’s strong, we’re looking at how we can help businesses do better. And one of the ways we’re looking at it is something called the Security Interest in Personal Property Act or SIPPA.
Now I inherited SIPPA people doing it before I came, but since I came, P.S. will tell you, the company’s office, Mrs. Shelley Leon and of course Ricky Davis from JIFSA will tell you that we took this on and made sure on a regular basis, P.S. where’s the legislation, where are the amendments. Mrs. Yvette Sutherland-Reed who is our chief legal officer, where is it, what does it do. And I must say, just like she did in carrying a lot of the heavy lifting for FATF, getting us back compliant, Mrs. Shelley Leon and her team worked on SIPPA to make sure we have this legislation in place.
And what does it do? It allows you, for instance, to, you want to start a business, you’re an entrepreneur, you have no dead left inheritance, you just come out of school, or you’ve been working for 10 years and you save a little bit of money, but you want to start a business. And you know what you have? You have a washing machine. Because you have children going to school and you make cakes and all that, you have two blenders.
And all of them have serial number. And you find under the SIPPA Act, oh yes, you were, you presented at the SIPPA Act, our TV star here, she was there, Ms. Spence was there, Dr. Spence was, she made a presentation, you’ll hear about one who were there in a bit. But all those things you can know under this law, as soon as it’s in place, some people have started, you can use that as collateral.
Now that’s something you might not think about in the past. But now you can use the equipment that you have with a serial number to get loans. So that means I can use my blender and the thing that you use to warm up food, same one, the microwave, and a washing machine. Minister Malahoo Forte can use their boat and private jet because they have serial numbers. And they can get bigger money than me, but I can start. So in other words, the government is making the laws so that ordinary Jamaicans can get benefit.
And you know what we did? I took this on November 25th, 2022, a motion I moved in the Senate. And we invited submission from the Bank of Jamaica, the Development Bank of Jamaica, Jamaica Agricultural Society, the Jamaica Association of Microfinancing, the Jamaica Bankers Association, Jamaica Cooperative Credit Union League, Jamaica Intellectual Property Office, Jamaica Bar Association, Kingston Creative, LASCO Microfinance Limited, the Rural Agricultural Development Authority, and the University of the West Indies and Social Sciences. Why am I telling you that? Because that’s how we in the government want to make legislation. Because when you make legislation and you pass the bill and all the regulations are in place, somebody raises their hand and says, well you didn’t ask my opinion. Well, we published it, see, from November 25th, 2022. I had lots of joint select commit meetings.
That means people from the opposition, people from the government sit and we hear all this and then we brought it together. With the last meeting earlier this month, the data has now gone to the Attorney General to create the law. And we hope to have this very soon because I’m pushing it to make sure that there are other, the SIPPA is there to make sure it’s much more inclusive, more ordinary people, more entrepreneurs can come in and get access to financial services, borrow money, maybe even say to others, I don’t want to borrow. I have this idea. I have some money myself. I have some equipment. I’m inviting you to put in some money as an equity holder. Let’s start a company. Don’t necessarily start off borrowing because borrowing means you have to pay monthly or quarterly interest.
If you get somebody to join with you on the equity basis, equity is patient capital. That’s how we call it in financial services. They have to wait until you make money and you pay dividends.
This is a government that supports business and we care. So we make laws like this to make it easy for Jamaicans who have some assets to convert it into cash and therefore become, to start their business and make more money. So, what’s the economy looking like? Domestic inflation. Inflation went up to 11.8%. It’s now back in the policy range that the government gives to the Independent Bank of Jamaica. They have one mandate. Look after inflation. Don’t worry about unemployment. Fiscal policy and the government’s management will have to take care of that. But on inflation, they have to take care of it.
So, inflation has been managed. They brought it down from that very high 11.8% in 2021-2022. Last year, the Bank of Jamaica dropped interest rates four times in four consecutive months. They dropped it in August to 4.75%. In September to 4.5%. No, no, sorry. They dropped it from, they’re taking it from 7% to 6.75%. Then they cut again to 6.5%. Then they cut it to 6.25%. And in December, they dropped it to 6%. Now, that’s a great deal of reduction in interest rate over a very short period of time, relatively short in four months, but certainly long enough for banks to respond.
As the Minister of Industry, Investment and Commerce, everywhere I go, from the quiet, wonderful, salubrious environments surrounding Monroe where I live, wonderful weather, ordinary Jamaican farmers, wonderful people, they are saying, why the banks can’t cut interest rates? The business people who have to borrow big money say, why the banks can’t cut interest rates? Because the central bank has been cutting interest rates. Inflation is within the 4% to 6% band that the Bank of Jamaica has to work with. And yet, people are saying interest rates not cutting. And they say about banks that, no, when the interest rates start to go up, they move it fast. Now, we know that what happens if you have a loan and you have an agreement that it’s 8% and or whatever percentage it is, and interest rates start to go up, let’s say in January, but your loan comes to renewal in September, they don’t change the rate in January. They have to keep the contractual rate. But new rates, newcomers in January have to pay a higher rate. Now, when the rates start to come down, people are complaining. Now, I’m reflecting what people are complaining about.
And so I am encouraging the banks to respond to those reduction in interest rates that the central bank has done and effected with such regularity, in such dropping a whole 100 basis point, 1%, in four months, five months. We need to make sure the banks understand that and people need to see that. And there’s a reason why I’m asking for it.
Apart from the fact that I understand how this thing works, since I’ve had to deal with it for many, many years. Economic growth, which is what we have to do after we put our fiscal house in order. Economic growth cannot happen with very high interest rates. It’s in the bank’s interest. It’s in ordinary Jamaicans’ interest who will pay less interest. It’s in business interest that the bank lending rates come down as quickly as they can. Now, of course, banks have to run their business. We want to make sure they’re profitable. But the central bank has indicated that the non-performing loans of the bank is about 2.4%. That’s a very, very acceptable number. So we know we’re not pressuring the bank to go and make bad loans. That’s far from me who run NCB here. I’m not interested in that.
But we need to make sure that we get those rates down. I want to talk about our exports very quickly. I want to make sure, though, that we… And that sound for lower interest rates isn’t going away very quickly because people are looking to see the benefit from it. Talk about exports. I’ve been pushing it for a long time. Well, what do our exports numbers tell us? I came to the ministry in 2022. In 2021, we exported for 1.48 billion U.S. dollars.
In 2022 we exported 1.901 billion US dollars and in 2023 the latest numbers I have for the year is two over two billion two point two billion and and one million US dollars so we are exports are growing or imports are also growing so our trade balance is not yet reducing but we see the movement in export a lot of what we import I can tell you is for is to produce other goods so that’s a very good place to be and I’m happy to do that the last thing I’m going to tell you about is the place where we are in making it easier to do business in Jamaica you’re going to hear more about this that’s one reason Ricky is here the Jamaica International Financial Services Authority we’ve just passed the segregated loans business we’re in the process with the Attorney General to make sure we pass a partnership bill which will deal with general and limited partners this is to make sure we invite people like those who do pretty much all the business in Bermuda and Turks and Caicos to Jamaica Bermuda has a per capita GDP of a hundred and fifty two thousand US dollars higher than the US higher than Singapore Jamaica has less than seven thousand we need to get into the financial services business to make sure we can compete many of those people who work in those countries I just named are Jamaicans they’re not working here because our laws and or financial infrastructure doesn’t allow it this is part of that regulation Minister Williams has just passed the trust International Corporate and Trust Providers Act it’s in the budget presentation this year that too will fit into what we’re doing in JIPSA to make sure many more lawyers many more accountants will work from Jamaica some will come here and we grow the economy because that’s where we’re going to have to grow high-level well-paid international financial services because we’re not going to be a major manufacturing country a country in the near future. We have our Minister of Legal and Constitutional Affairs with us and she’s joined by her permanent secretary Wayne Robertson thank you for being here and I saw that the head of our Jamaica Special Economic Zone Authority also joined us and so I want to welcome her too so over to you Minister Malahoo Forte.
Minister Malahoo Forte
Thank you, Minister Dixon, good morning ladies and gentlemen. Good morning to my ministers my PS or the PS my fellow Jamaicans I am here to address some matters on behalf of Prime Minister wholeness and as I listened to Minister Hill and before him Minister Morgan I think it’s worth reminding everyone that Jamaica operates on the rule of law and everything that we are seeking to do has to be done within a legal framework the Constitution of Jamaica is our highest law and it sets the framework and it is from that that everything else derives its legitimacy Jamaica is a free and democratic nation it’s a government by the people of the people and it remains work in progress to ensure that it is truly for the people the wholeness administration has been accused of embarking on a piecemeal reform of the Constitution of Jamaica and the opposition has issued a threat of not participating in a process which requires cooperation on both sides of the parliamentary aisle and ultimate approval of the people. I just wish to use the opportunity to set the record straight on a number of issues the reform of the Constitution is taking place in a phased approach cabinet approved a predetermined goal for the reform and this goal was set out at paragraph 3.1 of the terms of reference which speaks to the scope of the work of the Constitutional Reform Committee and there it made it clear that the reform goal was a promulgation of a modern and new Constitution of Jamaica which reflects and appreciation and understanding of Jamaica’s cultural heritage or governance challenges and development aspirations and which embodies the will of the people of Jamaica.
The Constitution Amendment Republic Bill 2024 was tabled in the Parliament of Jamaica in the House of Representatives on December 10, 2024 and on that said day a joint select committee was established to consider review and report to the Parliament on the provisions of the bill. As part of the work of the committee interaction with members of the public will take place. Members of the public have been invited to make submissions and ultimately will come before the committee to present.
Among the opposition members of the committee is the leader of the opposition himself Mr. Mark Golding and he’s accompanied by two of his nominees to the Constitutional Reform Committee. Mr. Anthony Hylton member of Parliament and Senator Scott Mottley. On the first meeting of the Constitutional Reform Committee the leader of the opposition posed some questions which he said he needed answer from Prime Minister Holness.
Just to indicate ladies and gentlemen that it’s important for you to have an appreciation of the governance challenges that we are addressing. A recommendation of the Constitutional Reform Committee is the retention of the parliamentary cabinet system and this was considered in contrast to the executive presidential system. As we went across the length and breadth of Jamaica there were Jamaicans asking for a change to the executive presidential system similar to what obtains in the US for example and as we listened we realized that there were a number of misunderstandings about the system of governance that we have and the call for a directly elected president was really a proxy issues for governance matters.
But the report of the Constitutional Reform Committee which is you know printed nicely for members of the public in this document sets out at paragraph 5 that a parliamentary cabinet system of government is a system of government in which the executive branch derives its legitimacy from and is accountable to the legislature that is the Parliament. In this system the head of government often called the Prime Minister is typically a member of the Parliament and is chosen on the basis of leadership or support of the party or parties which gains a majority in parliamentary elections. A presidential form of government on the other hand is a system of government in which the executive branch is separate from the legislative branch and in this system the president normally serves as both the head of state as well as the head of government, head of the executive government and is not usually a member of the legislature.
In its work the Constitutional Reform Committee for the assistance of members of the public summarize the features of the two forms of government and set it out in the report. Why have I taken you to this? Ladies and gentlemen when you embark on reform you really go through deep reflection, you rethink, and you refocus and that is what the Wholeness Administration has been doing over the last term. You would have already seen many areas of reform unfolded, reform of the public sector, reform of the economy and now we are bringing together the legal infrastructure of Jamaica.
I think everyone pretty much agrees that there is a need for greater accountability, there is a need for order in our public space and there is a need for lawfulness as opposed to lawlessness, as opposed to disorder, as opposed to impunity and so the work being done is serious. It is not merely the removal of a hereditary monarch who is almost tantamount to rule by divine right but it is also a relaying of the foundation of the nation and so the refocus in the parliamentary cabinet system and the establishment of a parliamentary republic in the Commonwealth is intended to relay the foundation of independent Jamaica and to move forward with the work. Let me just repeat that we are re-establishing the foundations of government for greater accountability at all levels of government to the people, in our government, by the people, of the people and for the people.
The goals have been clearly identified and we are embarking on the implementation in phases and that is primarily to ensure that we do not risk any instability in our democracy, that we continue to improve on what has worked well for us and has earned us an enviable spot in the community of nations among democracies as a stable democracy in spite of the challenges that we face. So the leader of the opposition posed questions to the government. The reason why I am answering on behalf of the Prime Minister is simply because the government headed by the Prime Minister, as a government headed by any Prime Minister, is arranged in ministries, departments and agencies and each ministry is assigned a portfolio of work with subject matters and laws and the ministry that I have the privilege to lead has the portfolio of constitutional reform.
Under Prime Minister Holness, decisions are taken in the cabinet and are then implemented in the same way that Minister Hill spoke to the matters assigned in the portfolio that he leads, in the same way that Minister Morgan, though without portfolio, is assigned responsibility for certain work and in the same way that Minister Dixon also has a portfolio of matters including information which gives her responsibility for chairing the post cabinet briefing. I am here because the Prime Minister has to be briefed on the subject matters assigned in the portfolio. So the leader of the opposition chose to use the forum of the joint select committee to raise his questions.
I was of the view and I expressed it then that while I understood the issues, I believe that it would have been more appropriate for him to have requested a meeting with the Prime Minister. Meetings have been held before and for the issues to be raised. But it was clear that his intention was for the matters to be placed squarely in the public domain and accordingly the responses are coming in the public domain.
So the first question spoke to bills to move to the Caribbean Court of Justice as Jamaica’s final court. He indicated that they were tabled in the parliament for a second time 10 years ago and his question was, are the people of Jamaica not entitled to be told why the government has not tabled the CCJ bill again, thereby signaling that both sides, government and opposition, will work together to accomplish the twin objectives of transitioning both the British monarchy and from the British monarch’s court. Mr Golding gave the impression that at no time was he made aware of the government’s approach to the reform.
Now ladies and gentlemen, before the Labour Party was returned to government in 2016, the leader of the party, no Prime Minister, spoke very clearly about the philosophy of the Jamaica Labour Party going into the 2016 elections and he outlined what the broad vision of the Jamaica Labour Party form in government would look like. And in that publication he indicated that the Jamaica Labour Party had shown a preference for the establishment of a local final court as we move forward with the reform. Let me immediately say that views on this matter are progressing and the truth is that no, there is no consensus on which final court for Jamaica, but there are three options for consideration.
The argument around extension to the appellate jurisdiction of the CCJ is understood. Jamaica is already a part of the court. It subscribes to the original jurisdiction of the which deals with Caribbean community matters under the revised treaty of Chaguaramas.
So it is not true to say that Jamaica is paying for a court that it is not using. Jamaica is a member of the original jurisdiction of the court as the community court dealing with Caribbean community matters and Minister Hill is very aware that very often matters in the portfolio assigned to him, particularly trade related matters, are dealt with there even if you are not aware of those matters. Cement for example, just trade disputes generally around tariffs and other things.
So it really should not have taken the opposition by surprise that more work needs to be done on which final court will be Jamaica’s final court in a reformed constitution. But beyond that, ladies and gentlemen, the work of the constitutional reform committee is guided by terms of reference and the terms of reference are actually appended to the report of the committee and it sets out very clearly the policy approach of the Holness administration and we indicated a rationale for this approach. I will come back to that.
The second question Mr. Golding posed, bearing in mind that the history of the constitutional reform process over the past 30 years has undeniably birthed a distrust factor, would the government not, like the opposition, wish for that to be put behind us before embarking on this leg of the historical legislative process and referendum for Jamaica to become a republic? Prime Minister Holness would tell you that it is precisely because of the understanding of the process that unfolded before he came into office why the cabinet decided to honour the work that was done previously and in particular work done under a PNP administration. And so as a starting point, the terms, the clearly settled terms indicated that they would revisit the report of the constitution reform commission which was established under the leadership of Prime Minister Patterson and even before work which commenced under former Prime Minister Michael Manley and that we would examine how those recommendations have withstood the passage of time. Additionally, where the recommendations needed to be adjusted, updated or edited, the requisite action would be taken to ensure that when we came to implementation, they would be suitable and ready for the approval of the people after the parliamentary process.
And so I have always said that accuracy matters. Truth matters. And there are many things that are verifiable. It’s just that we often do not take the time to look at the records. We are instead content with being told something and if it is told often enough, we believe that it can transform into truth when it is a stranger to the truth. So yes, like all Jamaicans, the wholeness administration is very aware that trust is broken in the society, and we have to work very, very hard to rebuild that trust.
And so the advisory committee for the reform work was comprised of members from the government side of parliament and the opposition side as well as members of the public and that was designed to reflect the process which required collaboration and cooperation between the two sides of parliament and ultimate approval by the people. Mr. Golding’s third question related to the fundamental duty, said he of the government explain in clear and unambiguous terms why the government is determined to proceed in a piecemeal fashion instead of using the historic opportunity that the reform process, of the reform process to ensure that the majority of Jamaican people enjoy the benefit of access to justice at their highest court. And then his first key indicated that the process was leaving the majority of Jamaicans behind because according to him, unless the issue of the final court was dealt with then the majority of Jamaicans would be left behind.
It couldn’t be farther from the truth. Though the latest statistic from the last census is not yet out, roughly our population stands at 2.7 million and we can round it up to 3 million and roughly, very roughly it’s about 2 million in the adult population. Every year our courts publish statistics, you have the chief justice publication, you have the court of appeal annual report.
We maintain that you do not get to your highest court unless there is a decision from your trial court or your first appellate court to appeal from. You do not go to your highest court at first instant and so the issues of justice that matter to the people of Jamaica do not begin with the highest court. I have looked at the statistics for the courts for the last five years and the impression that unless there is extension to the appellate jurisdiction of the CCJ at the same time when we’re transitioning from a constitutional monarchy to a republic, the vast majority of Jamaicans would be left behind is patently false, ladies and gentlemen.
The statistics of our supreme court, which is really the high court, shows that in 2029 new cases filed 13,116. I have not disaggregated the data to see how many relate to the same litigants. 2020 the figure decreased to 12,757. 2021 rose to 14,460. 2022, 13,870. 2023, 13,521.
These are new cases on top of outstanding cases. The court of appeal does something interesting in publishing its statistics. It speaks to transcripts referred because the court is hampered in hearing an appeal unless it has the records from the trial court and Jamaicans will tell you that many of them wait for years, sometimes decades, between the conclusion of a hearing and the matter moving to appeal.
I’ve had to deal with cases like this when I was in the role of attorney general, very embarrassing, where matters languished between trial and just getting to be heard in appeals. Many of you who report would have reported some of those cases and how the court of appeal dealt with it. To give the impression that unless the final court is dealt with, Jamaicans are being deprived of justice is not true.
So, the court of appeals numbers just to tell you how cases move from trial to first level appeal. 2029, 276 appeals were filed. 2019, thank you. 2020, 221. 2021, 290. 2022, 248. 2023, 234. And then you have even a smaller number going on appeal to your final court.
The vast majority of Jamaicans get justice in the trial courts and in particular in the parish court. I see Minister Hill, your permanent secretary was once a permanent secretary of justice and she’s very familiar with these matters because she would have had to deal with so many of those issues alongside her minister when she was in that role. So the parish court, which really is the face of justice in our justice system, over the same five years period, the new cases that went in 2019, 26,771. 2020, 21,166. 2021, 31,015. 2022, 21,230. 2023, 20,388. And that’s on the criminal side of the court. On the civil side of the court for 2019, there were 6,388 new cases filed. 2020, 15,920. 2021, 17,944. 2017, 17,057. 2023, 6,182. Ladies and gentlemen, it is not true to say that Jamaicans are being denied justice and the denial of justice relates to which final court we have. It is not true.
The approach of the administration on this matter of the administration of justice as we move to reform and relay the foundation is to take a holistic look at the judicial branch of government. And we indicated very clearly that that would be in phase two. There is also another logic to it. The constitution is put in sections and there is an amendment or an alteration mechanism that relates to the level of protection that is given to the judiciary.