Holness presses for stronger contractors as Alpart upgrade and Melissa housing aid advance

Prime Minister Dr. Andrew Holness says Jamaica needs a stronger class of contractors able to match the scale of government infrastructure works, speaking at the opening of Canewood Road in Portland under the SPARK programme.

Holness said the country must move past the idea that small operators with limited equipment can handle complex national projects. Contractors, he argued, must invest in their firms, build technical capacity and strengthen their balance sheets. He framed the challenge as one of finance, economics and competence, and called for partnership between the state and local firms to support that growth.

Separately, Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining Minister Floyd Green told the House of Representatives on Tuesday that Jiuquan Iron and Steel Company (JISCO) plans a two-phase modernisation of the Alpart refinery in St. Elizabeth. The project aims to restore alumina output to about two million tonnes a year, one million tonnes per phase. Phase one is valued at US$490 million and is to include a five-megawatt solar photovoltaic and energy-storage hybrid system, plant and power upgrades, dry stacking for residue, and rail and port rehabilitation. JISCO is working to start construction before year-end, with an official launch targeted before June 2027 and phase one completion within 20 months. Green said about 1,233 land titles are needed for relocated residents, with 350 completed and 56 more expected in 2026, while roughly 149 million tonnes of bauxite reserves are linked to lands being pursued.

State Minister for National Security and Peace Juliet Cuthbert-Flynn said a new Department of Correctional Services probation office at Big Bay Plaza on West Tradeway in Portmore, opened Wednesday, strengthens rehabilitation services in a fast-growing urban centre. The facility offers private counselling and case-management spaces and houses the department’s first dedicated play-therapy room for children affected by trauma, family conflict or justice-system involvement. It leads retrofitting work for Region 1 facilities serving 1,280 non-custodial clients.

The National Housing Trust has processed about 5,100 Hurricane Melissa recovery-grant applications worth roughly $2.2 billion from a pool of 8,300 bids of up to $500,000, mostly from Westmoreland, St. Elizabeth and St. James, assistant general manager Dwayne Berbick said. Some 213 relief loans of up to $3.5 million each, totalling about $700 million, have been approved, with 115 more under review. The facility, at a flat two per cent interest for NHT contributors, now also covers resilience upgrades even where Melissa did not strike. NHT’s Home Expo returns to Emancipation Park on Saturday, July 11, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., with free building plans and mortgage workshops.

Green also disclosed a near-$500-million proposal to Finance to revitalise Holland Bamboo in St. Elizabeth as an ecotourism site, including nurseries, new planting, irrigation and an alternative access route, speaking at the Castleton Botanical Gardens reopening in St. Mary.

Meteorological Service principal director Evan Thompson warned that a developing El Niño in the equatorial Pacific—possibly exceeding two degrees Celsius above normal—could bring hotter, drier Caribbean weather, weaker wet-season recharge of aquifers and reservoirs, and drought risk into the December–March dry period. He urged households to expand rainwater storage while rainfall still occurs.