Outrage grows as Government farms out Support Jamaica website operations to the Amber Group

Mark Kappart / Contributed

The Government’s decision to give total control of the Support Jamaica website to the Amber Group, headed by Dushyant Savadia, has many Jamaicans perplexed.

Savadia is a close friend of Prime Minister Andrew Holness and his government. He is also an ally of Cliff Hughes and Nationwide News Network (NNN).

He developed the COVID website for the Government and also worked on JPS’ website.

Support Jamaica Website

The Support Jamaica website was launched in or around November 2025 as a means for individuals to donate funds to Jamaica’s recovery efforts due to the impact of Hurricane Melissa.

With a project of this importance, why did the Government not see fit to give this assignment to EGov, which is the government’s central ICT authority responsible for executing digital transformation? This would have allowed all information garnered to be kept in-house, so to speak. Instead, the Amber Group contracted with Jamaica to use Amber’s website.

The Government has every right to give the Support Jamaica contract to Dushyant Savadia’s Amber Group. That’s its prerogative. Where it went wrong was giving Amber absolute control over the site, so much so that Amber has access to the information provided by donors.

Now the Director General of the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (DOPEM), Commander Alvin Gayle, at a PAC hearing last week revealed that the Government does not own the Support Jamaica website used for Hurricane Melissa relief donation efforts, a fact never revealed to the public.

Amber controls the back end and functionality of the website. What does that mean?

Amber has access to all donors’ information, their financial details, credit card information and addresses. How could the Government have allowed such a thing?

It’s hard to imagine another country in the world hit by a natural disaster of this severity not owning the platform and information for its relief efforts. In effect, the Government has ceded control of its primary relief efforts to a private entity which has access to incoming data, with the state remaining outside the remit of authority, save for what was contracted.

Ambassador Audrey Marks has been appointed as Minister with responsibility for Efficiency, Innovation and Digital Transformation. She was very vociferous in defending her corner concerning the Gleaner’s revelations about the US government sending TCNs to Jamaica and the implications for the country. She has not said a word about Amber and the Support Jamaica website. She needs to give a fulsome explanation to the country.

People in the Diaspora were not made aware that they would be sending money to help Jamaica through a website not owned and operated by the Government of Jamaica. It has been said that  Jamaica has received J$1.4 billion in donations. How can we now believe this? Who did this calculation? Was it Amber or the Government? How did the Government verify the amount? The Government of Jamaica has to take Amber’s word for it.

There is an element of sophistry on the Government’s part because this was never disclosed to the public. It came out under questioning by Opposition Spokesperson on Finance Julian Robinson in the PAC hearing. Jamaica would have been none the wiser otherwise, and the Government would have wanted it that way. 

Major General Anthony Anderson, when he was Ambassador to the United States and who now heads NaRRA, had said people must be wary about sending money for relief efforts to websites that are not official. He said they must guard against websites that are not Gov.Jm.

Well, here was a Gov.Jm website not owned and controlled by the Government. It is owned by a private sector entity that could shut out the Government.

Equally disturbing is the revelation that the Government contracted to have use of the site for one year before Amber assumes full control. Why did the Government cede so much control? Can people in the Diaspora have confidence that the donations they send will fall into the right hands and be dealt with properly for the benefit of Jamaicans living here?

Another travesty is that the Auditor General has uncovered management issues and non-compliance with data requirements with the Support Jamaica campaign and its associated website. This is most worrisome.

This is a national scandal.

Moreover, given that TechCrunch found Amber wanting previously, why did the Jamaican government sign on again with Dushyant Savadia’s company knowing of its shortfalls and vulnerabilities? This was gross carelessness. 

Back in 2021, reputable technology online newspaper TechCrunch reported that Amber Group left an Amazon Web Services cloud storage server exposed, leaking over 70,000 COVID-19 test results and 425,000 travel authorisation documents. 

Its article “How Jamaica failed to handle its JamCOVID scandal” is instructive. TechCrunch writer Zack Whittaker revealed that the JamCOVID app developed in just three days was not secure enough.

TechCrunch wrote, “Whether the data exposure was caused by human error or negligence, it was an embarrassing mistake for a technology company- and by extension the Jamaican government to make.”

Here we are again, history repeating itself. After this epic failure, why would the Government re-engage with Amber on the Support Jamaica website given the concerns about JamCOVID? 

TechCrunch said Amber was made aware of the JamCOVID lapses but failed to act.

TechCrunch warned: “TechCrunch emailed both the Jamaican Prime Minister’s office and Matthew Samuda, a minister in Jamaica’s Ministry of National Security, to ask how much, if anything, the Government donated or paid to Amber Group to run JamCOVID and what security requirements, if any, were agreed upon for JamCOVID. We did not get a response.”

“Amber Group also has not said how much it earned from its government contracts.”

Dushyant Savadia, who comes from India and now has Jamaican citizenship, has said that Jamaica will help make him a billionaire.

If this Government keeps handing him lucrative contracts, he is well on his way to attaining his goal.