Three weeks after Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness pointed to a United Nations Development Programme estimate that Hurricane Melissa left Jamaica with 4.8 million metric tonnes of debris, Works Minister Robert Morgan has made a bold promise that major towns in the hardest-hit parishes will be free of garbage by Christmas.

“They will be clean by Christmas. As a matter of fact, they will be clean before Christmas. That’s a commitment,” Morgan told reporters and editors at the Jamaica Observer Press Club on Friday.

He said the deadline was possible through collaboration between the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA) and private operators provided through the Ministry of Local Government, as well as work done by the National Works Agency (NWA) to make roads commutable for garbage trucks.

Last month, Prime Minister Holness had indicated that while every effort is being made to remove the millions of metric tonnes of debris left behind by Hurricane Melissa, which slammed into Jamaica’s south-western coast on October 28, 2025, the Government is still grappling with options for the proper disposal of that refuse.

He said that removing the volume of debris would require about 480,000 standard truckloads.

“I want to give hope to the people of Jamaica that, though this figure of almost 500,000 truckloads of debris is daunting and far greater than we have ever faced… the challenge is not just to move the debris [but] where do we store it and how do we store it safely,” Holness said during a special post-Melissa media briefing at Jamaica House in St Andrew.

“And so, we are examining all the options, including recycling, using the wood chippers to reduce the wood, including, having a structured approach to the recovery of scrap metals, and other such strategies to make sure that we can properly manage this debris; but objective number one is to move the debris out of the space where people are living,” the prime minister said.

Since then, the Government has announced a national clean-up programme which it officially launched in Darliston, Westmoreland, on December 5.

Minister of Local Government Desmond McKenzie said the programme represents a coordinated, multi-parish and multi-constituency response to accelerate clean-up and rehabilitation efforts in the communities most severely impacted by the Category 5 hurricane.

“This programme is not simply about sweeping streets, it is about cleansing communities, restoring livelihoods, and reinforcing the social fabric that makes Jamaica strong,” McKenzie said at the launch.

He pointed out that the programme, valued at $1 billion, covers 16 affected constituencies across five parishes and is being operated over the next four to six weeks.

On Friday, Morgan pointed to the programme.

“I know that NSWMA and Minister McKenzie have been out there doing the work. Black River is pretty much clean in terms of debris. When I went down there two weeks after the hurricane, I gave instructions at the end of the day to remove all the debris. So we have removed the debris and temporarily stockpiled it outside of the town,” Morgan said.

“With the help of the NSWMA, the fire brigade, the JDF (Jamaica Defence Force), Mayor [of Montego Bay Richard] Vernon, and the municipal corporation, we removed over 2,000 loads of debris. Not only that, but we mobilised 100 JDF soldiers, 200 residents, at least 30 to 40 trucks, and we washed down the entire community of Westgreen and Catherine Hall,” said Morgan, as he detailed the work done in Montego Bay, St James.

A few weeks before the passage of the hurricane, the NSWMA was under heightened pressure due to complaints of slow garbage collection. At the time, the agency reported that it was clearing a backlog in several areas and had anticipated that it would bring the problem under control in a matter of two weeks.

But according to NSWMA Executive Director Audley Gordon, the problem was worsened by the storm’s assault with road blockages, landslides, and flooding, causing further delay in domestic garbage collection of up to 12 working days.

On Friday, Minister Morgan told the Observer Press Club that clean-up operations were being conducted islandwide as part of a $10-million post-Melissa allocation to each constituency by the Government to remove debris and control the rise in vector-borne diseases.

“As you can see, the minister of health is saying that the cases of leptospirosis are reducing because we’re removing the garbage, because we’re cleaning up the habitat for rats and so on,” he said.

Morgan’s reference was to an update provided by Health and Wellness Minister Dr Christopher Tufton on Thursday that the clean-up exercise has resulted in a de-escalation in the cases of leptospirosis which has so far claimed 14 lives, while 39 other cases have been confirmed.

Morgan reiterated that he had full confidence in the NSWMA and NWA, saying that Jamaicans will be able to enjoy Christmas without the nuisance of uncollected garbage.

“You see the National Works Agency doing this work by clearing the roads and filling the potholes and ensuring that the trucks can go into the nitty-gritty and nooks and crannies… Cleaning is a part of that [road work] and we’re going to be doing that before Christmas,” he said.