January 4, 2026 marked the fifth anniversary of the passing of Gordon “Butch” Stewart, Jamaica’s ebullient, generous, and patriotic businessman. This month, in his honour, the
Jamaica Observer publishes a series of updated articles recalling actions of “The Chairman” that inspired the nation. This is the first in the series written by award-winning journalist Desmond Allen.

The Butch Stewart Initiative (BS Initiative), also known as the Save the Dollar campaign and which galvanised massive national support among the people and temporarily revalued the Jamaican dollar in 1992, will be especially remembered for winning over the usually sceptical news media.

Notably, The Gleaner newspaper, in a rare move, published three editorials in just over four weeks — two of them coming within three days of each other — lauding the initiative, while running scores of letters and columns in a lopsided debate for as against.

Commentators and letter writers ran out of adjectives to describe “Butch” Stewart, the Sandals founder and architect of the Save the Dollar campaign, with one calling him a “modern-day Moses” and several saying only God could have inspired him to undertake what he did.

Stewart announced on April 14, 1992 that he would shock the black market by pumping US$1 million a week into the official foreign exchange market at below prevailing rates, to help halt the slide of the Jamaican dollar.

“It is now about 10 weeks since the Stewart initiative to rescue the value of the local currency from its rapid depreciation on the foreign exchange market, and all the evidence, it seems, is that the initiative has had a welcome effect on checking the devaluation,” The Gleaner wrote on June 30.

“There may be arguments as to whether the resultant strengthening in the value of the dollar is sustainable, and whether the intervention in the market is not a distortion of the free market system. The point, however, is that if the market becomes a drag on economic stability, intervention can be justified, and in the words of Mr Stewart, the measure has worked. The country feels it,” the editorial said.

Some of the earliest media commentators included Carl Wint; Terry Smith; C Roy Reynolds; Morris Cargill; Dawn Ritch; Christene King; Paget deFreitas; Valerie Ndekhedehe; German Vogue magazine; Western Mirror newspaper; Travel Week Bulletin; Caribbean Today; Jamaica Beat; and Jamaica Pace-Setter Magazine.

Seventeen years later, recalling what was going through his mind in April 1992 when he felt determined to stop the precipitous slide, Stewart said: “The Jamaican dollar was devaluing at supersonic speed. Every night the radio and television reports spoke of the new rate of exchange.

“With each movement of the currency, the nation felt the sting in the tail as prices spiralled out of control. Jamaicans were in a state of despair never before seen. It was difficult to sit back and do nothing,” Stewart revealed.

Stewart, who earned US dollars from his Sandals hotels, didn’t stop long enough to calculate the cost of his plan. Before it ended an unbelievable 15 months later, he had lost roughly US$23 million.

“I never see it as a loss. I prefer to believe that it was a gift to the Jamaican people. In effect, I subsidised the Jamaican economy to the tune of US$23 million at the time and I am glad I did it,” he said in an interview with the Observer, the newspaper he also founded.

He remembered that PJ Patterson had just taken the reins of Government from the ailing Michael Manley. Deregulation was the order of the day and the national cupboard was almost bare. Under extreme demand pressures, the Jamaican dollar screamed. The currency speculators were having the time of their lives.

“At whirlwind speed the dollar flew from $17 to US$1 in almost a week. It then picked up momentum and crashed the $27 barrier in almost no time at all,” said Stewart. “It seemed like nothing could stop this free fall. Before long it was at $29 to one on the official market, and speculators were trading at $31 to one.”

A fretful Prime Minister Patterson called a meeting of the captains of industry to discuss the state of the economy, and appealed to them to draw on their Jamaican creativity to respond. Stewart was at the meeting.

On his way back to his office Stewart agonised over what he could do. “I’m in a unique position,“ he thought to himself. On one hand, his highly successful ATL Group was buying US dollars on a weekly basis to import appliances, motor cars, and the like. On the other hand, he was earning US dollars through his world-class Sandals tourism entities.

He found himself mentally reciting his favourite lines of Sir Walter Scott’s patriotic poem:

“Breathes there the man with soul so dead,

Who never to himself hath said,

This is my own, my native land.

Whose heart ne’er within him burn’d…

If such there breathe, go mark him well,

For him no minstrel raptures swell,

High though his titles, proud his name,

Boundless his wealth as wish can claim…

Living, shall forfeit fair renown,

And doubly dying, shall go down,

To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,

Unwept, unhonoured, and unsung…”

It felt as if the 1805 poem was written for him. And a plan began to take shape in his mind.

Stewart’s strategy was simple. He knew that the currency speculators determined the unofficial rate of exchange to the extent that they could price their US dollars. He also understood that the Bank of Jamaica (BOJ), with its weighted average formula, determined the official rate. The challenge, therefore, he argued, was to be able to skew the weighted average by the amount he could pump into the market.

The hotelier also reckoned that by setting the example he could inspire other Jamaicans to do the same. This would have the effect of taming the speculators, who could only have their way in an environment of a deteriorating dollar.

Stewart gathered his financial gurus and together they worked out the finer points of the plan. Everyone agreed it was going to be an unprecedented corporate sacrifice for the good of a nation. But it had to be done.

Then he called a first-of-a-kind press conference to make the amazing announcement that would galvanise Jamaicans in a patriotic rally that compared only with Michael Manley’s declaration of May 23 as National Labour Day in 1972.

At the time Leachim Semaj, who would eventually partner with Stewart on the BS Initiative, was hosting a popular show called The Night Doctor on RJR. The idea, according to Semaj, was “to use music to heal the mentally sick, raise the spiritually dead, and set the cultural captives free”. It ran from 1:00 am to 5:00 am, achieving unprecedented audience size on that graveyard shift. It was during that show that the celebrated Save the Dollar campaign was launched.

Semaj was listening to the morning talk shows in April 1992 when he heard: “Gordon ‘Butch’ Stewart, the hotel, airline and newspaper mogul, announced that he would put US$1 million a week into the system, at a rate of US$1 to J$25, to help stabilise the Jamaican currency.”

The talk show host noticed how, “some talk show hosts, especially Mutty Perkins, sounded as if ‘Butch’ was mad”. But the dollar had dived from $25 to $1, to $29 to $1 in four days and prices generally were spiralling to catch up. There was great uncertainty and volatility in the foreign exchange market. Bottom line? The poor were being hit hard.

Semaj came up with an idea based on Stewart’s act of patriotism. That night on his show he challenged his audience, estimated to be 150,000 strong, to better what Stewart had done by putting in US$10 million a week into an account, at a rate of $24 to $1. This money would be on-lent to the productive sector.

It was a masterstroke, and it worked. After the then Mutual Security Bank president scoffed at the idea, Semaj turned to Rex James of NCB. He accepted and went one better. He suggested that
The Night Doctor set the rate for NCB every Wednesday. Whatever was set, that would be the rate at which the bank would trade that day.

Defying the sceptics, the bank some days drew in up to US$2.8 million and the rate dropped to as low as $22 to $1, remaining stable until December that year when, according to Semaj, the central bank sold above the published rate.

It was an awful December morning when the BOJ delivered that fatal stab to the heart of what was then regarded as one of the most patriotic acts of modern Jamaica.

BOJ men in grey suits and operating out of spanking new briefcases fanned out across the city and traded the Jamaican dollar above the rate that the BS Initiative had kept it for nine months previously, signalling its eventual demise six months later. But while it lasted, Jamaica was a country reborn.

On the 17th anniversary when Stewart gave his exclusive interview on why he started the initiative, the local dollar was trading at approximately $90 to US$1. It is now, on average, at $151 to US$1.

But one can speculate as to where it might have been, had it not been for the historic Butch Stewart Initiative.

Next week: Air Jamaica – the little piece of Jamaica that cries

The Jamaican dollar had dived from $25 to $1, to $29 to $1 in four days and prices generally were spiralling to catch up. There was great uncertainty and volatility in the foreign exchange market.

PATTERSON.. called a meeting of the captains of industry to discuss the state of the economy and appealed to them to draw on their Jamaican creativity to respond

SEMAJ… through his popular radio show The Night Doctor on RJR partnered with Butch Stewart on his Save the Dollar Initiative