Auditor General flags stalled hurricane relief cash as Kingston mayor and parliament press parallel accountability issues

A fresh Auditor General review says Jamaica still has weak controls on post-hurricane money, with only a thin slice of recorded Hurricane Melissa donations actually paid out while other storm-related balances also linger unused.

The findings put total Melissa-linked donations at about $1.44 billion, of which roughly 1.8 per cent, near $26 million, had been spent by the review period, all of it on roofing supplies. Money left from Hurricane Beryl—more than J$138.8 million plus US$100,000—also remained untouched. Auditors said the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management had no clear expenditure plan, so help moved slowly while communities waited.

The report adds that about J$15.7 million and close to US$300,000 stayed with a financial services firm without a formal contract, transfers were slow, and reviewers could not confirm whether the sums reached ODPM. On roofing work, about $34 million in materials was issued without signed receipts, and payment trails for contracts above $100 million were missing. ODPM reported 421 roofs fixed, but checks found no solid beneficiary verification or completion paperwork. On the National Disaster Fund, investigators said the vehicle had no dedicated bank account, so cash mixed with other work, and legally required annual reports and account statements had not been prepared since at least 2018. Even with about $163 million in cash and $293 million invested as of February, oversight was still judged poor, and the Auditor General warned that slack financial management could corrode donor trust and weaken the next disaster response unless ODPM gets a firm spending plan, a ring-fenced disaster account, and formal partner agreements.

Parliamentary Secretary in the Education Ministry and Government Senator Marlon Morgan countered that a parallel “real-time” audit track shows the state has already pushed more than J$11.3 billion through over four hundred active Melissa relief and recovery contracts, a figure he said dwarfs the roughly J$1.44 billion in donations still unspent. He framed the document as highlighting bureaucracy, not corruption, and argued the new National Accountability for Resilience framework should improve how money is applied.

Kingston Mayor Andrew Swaby, at a corporation meeting on Tuesday, pushed back on Works Minister Robert Morgan’s split that about seventy per cent of Kingston and St Andrew roads sit with the Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation and thirty per cent with the National Works Agency. Swaby said the KSAMC pulls roughly J$85 million a month from the Parochial Revenue Fund for upkeep, far short of what full repairs need, and that the roads unit still runs short of technical staff while lacking full power to expand capacity on its own.

The House of Representatives Standing Orders Committee met Tuesday on a draft reordering of chamber rules. Speaker Juliet Holness said the text mainly rearranges existing procedures into clearer parts rather than rewriting the entire rule book, and members agreed to consult government and opposition benches before locking changes. Opposition MP Marlene Malahoo Fort, described on air as backing the staged approach, was later corrected to the government side of that committee.

St Andrew Western MP Anthony Hylton, after an ethics committee session Wednesday, questioned how the leadership code lines up with the political code in a long-running matter he said the House had already settled by resolution, leaving the committee without further jurisdiction in his view.

In the Supreme Court in downtown Kingston, the trial of alleged leader Tesha Miller and twenty-four co-accused heard a detective constable describe an August 11, 2022 scene in Greater Portmore with a bound man shot dead, processing, then movement to Spanish Town Hospital for a doctor’s confirmation. Defence counsel Patricia Gajadhar pressed gaps between a 2022 statement and a 2026 restatement, including a first-time mention of hospital attendance, prompting the Crown to urge fidelity to disclosure; Justice Dale Palmer explored limits on re-examination. The evidence tied to counts on the robbery and murder of Zamari McKay lists accused Carlos Williams, Germaine Clark, and Owen Billings under those counts, with hearings set to resume Thursday.

A thanksgiving for former senator Hugh Cecil Edmund Hart drew officials from Jamaica and the Cayman Islands to George Town, Cayman, after his death on Thursday, April 17. Hart sat in the Senate from 1980 to 1993, co-founded Hart Muirhead and Fay, and held mining and energy and tourism portfolios in the 1980s. Prime Minister Andrew Holness and Cayman Deputy Premier André Ebanks, rendered in the broadcast as “Gary Roti,” each praised his legal and policy footprint.

In St James, police launched a youth club at Spot Valley High School, with Assistant Commissioner Charmaine Shand outlining mentorship, leadership, sports, and civic tracks backed by 292 school resource officers. Montego Bay Community College principal Dr Darian Henry tied school unrest to wider social cues, while Education Ministry security director Richard Thwaites said the drive should build trust with boys seeing policing as a career.

Senior Superintendent and St James division head Aaron Samuels appealed for early tips on domestic rows after data showed most of the year’s parish killings tied to private disputes, including four women killed, three reportedly linked to intimate-partner violence. He cited progress holding one suspect over a Catherine Hall killing and named Dane Watson, described as an American woman’s husband, as a person of interest still sought, possibly between Montego Bay and St Ann, as the parish logged the island’s highest murder count for the period cited.