Jamaica is in recession, tax collections are running $28.6 billion below target, and the government’s slow response to Hurricane Melissa is deepening both problems — that was the sharp assessment delivered by opposition finance spokesman Julian Robinson at a People’s National Party conference on Sunday.
Speaking at the annual constituency conference of PNP MP Phillip Paulwell at Vauxhall High School, Robinson said two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth had already pushed Jamaica into a technical recession, with a third quarter of contraction likely on the way.
Official data support the claim. The Planning Institute of Jamaica recorded a 7.1 per cent contraction in the October-to-December quarter of 2025 — the period in which Hurricane Melissa made landfall as a Category 5 storm on 28 October — followed by a further decline of between 4.1 and 5.9 per cent in the January-to-March quarter of 2026. Finance Minister Fayval Williams acknowledged in February that PIOJ projections pointed to “negative growth of between three and six per cent as the current fiscal year closes.”
Robinson told Sunday’s conference that the slower-than-necessary pace of recovery from Melissa was feeding the revenue gap. Small businesses in the western parishes — the hardest-hit region — had received no government assistance, he said, and their paralysis was showing up directly in tax collections. Agricultural output in St. Elizabeth fell nearly 40 per cent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2026, with Hanover recording a similar decline.
“None of us have control over natural disasters, but what government has control over is how quickly we recover, and they are failing at the pace of recovery,” Robinson said.
Prime Minister Andrew Holness, in a social media post this week, appeared to acknowledge the frustration driving that criticism. “I understand the frustration when people feel that government is moving too slowly,” Holness wrote on Instagram. “Jamaicans want to see things get done, and they have every right to expect efficiency.” He argued, however, that urgency could not come at the cost of transparency and institutional integrity, calling instead for a public service that could “deliver for our people with urgency, while protecting the integrity of our institutions.”
Robinson also criticised the government’s chronic underspending of the capital budget, warning that the administration may be forced to cut expenditure or raid that already-depleted allocation to manage the shortfall. The opposition, he said, would continue to “agitate, recommend and hold the Government accountable.”
