NaRRA has outlined about US$6 billion in reconstruction works over five years. Jamaica’s architects, contractors and home builders say the local industry can deliver, and want a seat at the table.
KINGSTON, Jamaica, 30 October 2026. Jamaica’s construction professionals are pushing back against suggestions that the island lacks the capacity to carry out major rebuilding works, as the National Reconstruction and Resilience Authority (NaRRA) prepares to oversee an estimated US$6 billion in infrastructure and resilience projects over the next five years, The Gleaner reported today.
The exchange took place on Thursday during a real estate development webinar hosted by the Jamaica Developers’ Association, where the chief executive officer of NaRRA presented the Authority’s plans.
What NaRRA plans to build
According to The Gleaner, the chief executive officer put the cost of the planned works at about US$6 billion, or roughly US$120 million a month. The list includes four hospitals, in Black River, in Falmouth, in Lucea to replace the Noel Holmes Hospital, and at the Kingston Public Hospital.
Other plans include increasing the capacity of the Hermitage Dam and the Yallahs pipeline, developing a multiuse port at Yallahs, building water tanks across the island and at STEAM schools, relocating the Tinson Pen Aerodrome and carrying out work at Vernamfield in Clarendon. The programme also covers sewage upgrades serving the Norman Manley International Airport, work on the Sandy Gully, improvements in downtown Kingston and housing relocation.
The scale is set by the financing behind the Authority. When the NaRRA Bill was debated in the House of Representatives in April, the Prime Minister said the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank Group, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean and the Caribbean Development Bank had jointly committed a financing package of up to US$6.7 billion. He put the assessed damage and loss from Hurricane Melissa at US$12.2 billion.
The industry’s case
The president of the Jamaican Institute of Architects told the webinar that many of the experts called on at short notice for post disaster redevelopment work across the Caribbean and beyond are based in Jamaica. “We have not identified any major shortage in terms of the professional capacity of architects and the variety of engineers we have in Jamaica as well as our developers,” he said, according to The Gleaner. He urged the Authority to hold further talks with professional groups to identify and fill any real gaps.
The managing director of a local housing developer said local builders had shown they could work at scale when they built 13,000 houses in Greater Portmore over seven years, about 30 years ago. He told the webinar that he had not heard of anyone in the industry being approached by the Government to prepare for the reconstruction programme. The Gleaner also quoted him as saying that local builders had built more than 219,000 homes over the last 60 years, a figure this publication has not independently verified.
The comments echo concerns raised in April by the Incorporated Masterbuilders Association of Jamaica, whose president said then that the association had not been engaged in genuine consultation while the legislation was before Parliament. He listed procurement, transparency and local participation as the main issues, and said any overseas firms brought in should also be helping local workers take on more over time.
The Authority’s view
The chief executive officer said the pace of project delivery in Jamaica was a common complaint among both local developers and foreign investors. “We are just saying that we can actually do things a little faster,” he said, as quoted by The Gleaner.
In April, the Prime Minister told the House that the concerns raised by the masterbuilders on procurement, transparency, accountability and local participation were legitimate and would be taken seriously. He said local contractors, workers and businesses were “central to the reconstruction effort”, and that NaRRA would be exempted from the standard procurement regime under the Public Procurement Act, with its own procurement terms set by order of the Minister of Finance.
Last week, the Minister of Industry, Investment and Commerce told the Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce and Industry that US$2.4 billion of the reconstruction financing must go through the private sector, the Jamaica Observer reported.
What it may mean for property
For the property market, the size of the programme cuts both ways. Spending at an average of about US$120 million a month is likely to keep demand for contractors, materials and skilled trades high for several years. That may create work for local firms, but it may also compete with private housing developments and with homeowners still repairing hurricane damage for the same crews and supplies, which could push up costs and stretch timelines.
Several of the planned works also bear directly on where homes can be built. Water storage, sewage capacity and drainage often decide whether land can be subdivided and developed, and improvements to sewage at the airport, work on the Sandy Gully and upgrades in downtown Kingston may, if completed, open up or support development in parts of the Corporate Area over time.
Much will depend on how the Authority’s procurement rules are written and published, and on whether the dialogue the architects and builders are asking for takes place. Those details are likely to determine how much of the US$6 billion is spent with Jamaican firms.
The money and the project list are in place. The question the industry is now asking is who will build it.
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