WITH the recovery from Hurricane Melissa expected to be long and costly, the Government is in the process of setting up a national body to oversee and drive the reconstruction effort.

Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness made the announcement Thursday during a special media briefing at Jamaica House.

After pointing to the World Bank’s rapid damage assessment which has quantified physical damage from Melissa at US$8.8 billion, Holness said the entity, named the National Reconstruction and Resilience Authority (NaRRA), will have immediate access to US$1.15 billion to kick-start its work. He noted that at least half the US$8.8 billion will have to be borne by the Government, the rest by private interests.

Holness said NaRRA, a statutory body, will have special powers to lead, coordinate, fast-track, and oversee the national reconstruction. It will be made up of a multi-stakeholder board and report directly to him.

He told the media briefing that while the World Bank’s preliminary estimate of the damage will no doubt be refined by more detailed assessments, it is unquestionable that Hurricane Melissa is the deadliest natural disaster to hit Jamaica in more than 70 years.

“In absolute terms, the cost of the damage is the highest of any hurricane in Jamaica’s recorded history,” he stated.

“This means the rebuilding effort will be the largest in Jamaica’s modern history,” he added.

In explaining the rationale for establishing NaRRA, the prime minister pointed out that existing government structures, procedures, rules, and regulations are not designed for capital reconstruction at emergency speed and scale.

“Our traditional decentralised ministry-by-ministry and agency-by-agency approaches and procurement and public investment rules, while appropriate in normal times, were not designed to meet the scale and speed that will be required to implement an effective post-Melissa recovery in any practical time frame,” the prime minister said.

“Furthermore, having each agency or ministry of government mount its own reconstruction would, over the long term, cannibalise operational capacity and further affect the delivery of public services. In addition, a fragmented ministry-by-ministry approach will not easily scale to meet the magnitude of the reconstruction challenge. We, therefore, need a dedicated reconstruction apparatus,” he added.

The prime minister highlighted that there is national and international precedent for this approach, saying that it has been used in large-scale disasters — for example in New Orleans in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina; in Canterbury, New Zealand after the Christchurch Earthquake in 2011; and also in Japan after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

“In Jamaica, too, Prime Minister Patterson established the Office of National Reconstruction (ONR) after Hurricane Ivan. The ONR was set up as a special unit to co-ordinate relief and reconstruction. It was not established by an Act of Parliament,” said Holness.

He said the NaRRA will be much larger in scope and scale and established under special purpose legislation.

“Given the extraordinary powers that will be sought to expedite reconstruction, the NaRRA will be set up with a sunset date of five years, renewable by Parliament,” he said.

He shared that the NaRRA will focus on building back better — safer homes, climate-resilient infrastructure, better land-use planning, and relocation from high-risk zones.

He also outlined that, like other agencies, the NaRRA will be financed from the national budget. However, recovery and reconstruction activities will be financed initially from the National Natural Disaster Recovery Fund (NNDRF).

The NNDRF was set up to receive the proceeds of Jamaica’s disaster risk instruments, including Jamaica’s Catastrophe Bond, policies with the Caribbean Catastrophe Reinsurance Facility, and various credit contingent claims with the Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank. The prime minister said these amounts will total approximately US$650 million.

“It is likely that the Government of Jamaica will have to borrow to finance reconstruction beyond what will be available in the NNDRF,” he said while pointing out that the Government has immediate access to approximately US$500 million from the International Monetary Fund’s Rapid Financing Facility.

“So we will start this reconstruction effort with approximately US$1.15 billion in immediately available funds,” said Holness. He emphasised that this was significant, noting that “under normal circumstances, it would take us three fiscal years to spend such in capital expenditure”.

Holness also shared that the NaRRA will have special powers to accelerate planning approvals, procurement, public investment and implementation, reducing delays for priority reconstruction projects in designated special reconstruction areas.

He said a high-level public/private advisory board will be established, which he will chair. “There will be persons on the board with expertise and experience in engineering, finance, planning, procurement, and project management.

“We will also establish an inter-agency coordinating committee that will ensure decisions are made swiftly by the heads of executing entities,” Holness said and sought to assure that accountability and transparency will not be sacrificed for speed. “On the contrary, the legislation that gives birth to the NaRRA will incorporate transparency and accountability mechanisms that can provide assurance to the public,” he said.

The prime minister also opined that the NaRRA will ultimately provide a blueprint for wider public sector transformation, demonstrating how Jamaica can deliver major projects faster, more transparently, and with greater accountability. He said this approach aligns with the Government’s broader vision of a modern, efficient State capable of delivering development outcomes at scale.