JAMAICANS like to use this pithy quote, “Anywhere yuh turn macka jook yuh,” which is not far from the meaning of no good deed goes unpunished.

With Jamaicans battered and bruised by Category 5 Hurricane Melissa, which hit the island on October 28, 2025, the Government had no choice but to open the floodgates to relief supplies from the Diaspora and international aid organisations. It did so by waiving Customs duties and General Consumption Tax (GCT) on critical imports from November 5 to 28, 2025 then to December 31, and finally to January 15, 2026. That strategy worked like a charm as a massive response greeted the heart-rending suffering of Jamaicans, especially in the south-west, but caused the ports and cargo warehouses to clog up.

Now, the Shipping Association of Jamaica (SAJ) and other stakeholders are literally begging importers and cargo owners to take immediate action by clearing goods that have already been stripped from containers, warning that the worsening backlog is slowing operations across the maritime sector.

“The longer stripped cargo remains uncollected, the bigger the problem becomes,” complained SAJ President Ms Corah Ann Robertson-Sylvester. “All institutions within the maritime sector… are working together to resolve this issue. Some businesses have even extended their operating hours to facilitate faster clearance, but we need cargo owners to come forward and collect their goods.”

It was the perfect storm, no pun intended.

In October, as imports for the Christmas trade began to pile in, the hurricane smashed the island, forcing the surge in relief items. That then was compounded by the traditional Yuletide overload, especially of barrels, creating an unprecedented volume of shipments, said SAJ.

Matters got worse, as with the Montego Bay port limping to a crawl due to hurricane damage, some cargo was diverted to Kingston as a contingency, causing terminals in the capital to be operating even now at above-normal capacity.

It didn’t stop there, because expired unaccompanied baggage allowance better known as yellow form documents, have contributed to the delays in clearing personal and relief shipments.

Interestingly, when the Government extended the waiver deadline to January 15 it was with great reluctance and under pressure from the Diaspora, where reports were accumulating that tons of relief supplies had been caught up in the backlog and risked not reaching needy Jamaicans.

Beyond that, of course, the Administration was fretting over the $12 billion it was forced to give up in duties and GCT in that short period, understandably because that wiped out the amount by which total government revenue and grants were exceeded previously.

Asking for any further duty waiver is no longer practical. We join the SAJ in appealing to importers, family members, brokers, and registered charitable organisations to move forthwith to free up warehouse space.

As the SAJ warns: “Beyond easing congestion, prompt clearance of cargo is critical to reducing demurrage and storage charges for businesses, and maintaining supply chains for Jamaica’s tourism and retail sectors, and keeping costs from being passed on to consumers.”

If the Government is forced, it might well have to consider having the disaster agencies remove the goods and distribute them to suffering Jamaicans.