Commentary

Auditor General Pamela Monroe Ellis
December 9, 2025

Editorial | Real-time audits warranted

The decision by the auditor general (AuG) to conduct real-time audits of foreign aid to Jamaica in the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa is a welcome move that need not add bureaucracy to, or delay, the…
Indigenous peoples perform at a plenary session at the COP30 UN Climate Summit in Belem, Brazil, on November 10.
December 9, 2025

Elizabeth Morgan | Climate Change (COP30) and CARICOM

FROM STUDIES now done, Hurricane Mellissa is being assessed as the third most intense Atlantic/Caribbean hurricane when it made landfall on Jamaica’s southwest coast on Tuesday, October 28. Some…
A banana and plantain field in Elderslie, St Elizabeth, that was wiped out by Hurricane Melissa.
December 9, 2025

Norris R. McDonald | A storm of crises: Hurricane Melissa and IMF budget woes!

“Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows!” —William Shakespeare, The Tempest SHOULD JAMAICA continue to pay the International Monetary Fund (IMF) while its people starve in the wake of the…
The United Nations Climate Change Conference COP30 in Belém, Brazil.
December 9, 2025

Editorial | Looking towards Belém

As Jamaicans continue to dig their way out of the massive disaster left by Hurricane Melissa, this newspaper is also paying attention to the COP30 climate conference in Belém, Brazil. For what happens…
This photo shows a part Oxford community in St Elizabeth ravaged by Hurricane Melissa.
December 9, 2025

Michael Abrahams | Why we need to follow the money

Last week, the presidents of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ), the Jamaica Manufacturers and Exporters Association (JMEA) and the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce (JCC) wrote a letter to…
December 9, 2025

Gordon Robinson | Old BC in Digihell

Bad news comes in threes as Melissa, then her aftermath, were two of the worst but now the Old Ball and Chain is outraged at Digicel. So we’ve no choice but to experience a third storm.
Commander Alvin Gayle, director general of the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management.
December 9, 2025

Editorial | ODPEM in risky times

Unless the recommended restructuring of the government’s disaster management system was only for a change of its top leader, last week’s shake-up at the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency…
This photo taken on November 3 shows a collapsed fence, uprooted powerlines and trees at Ferris Primary School in Westmoreland.
December 9, 2025

Editorial | Melissa exposes the Jamaican state

Melissa, the horrendously intense category 5 hurricane that smashed through western Jamaica nearly a fortnight ago, did not simply tear up infrastructure and take lives. Although plenty of that…
 USS Wichita and HMJS Cornwall sail in formation during a live-fire exercise on April 9, 2021.
December 9, 2025

Stephen Vasciannie | Shiprider agreement should safeguard Jamaica’s national self-respect

Some of the main aspects of Jamaica’s relationship with the United States of America within the Caribbean Sea are governed by the Agreement Concerning Cooperation in Suppressing Illicit Maritime Drug…