January 28, 2026
The Government has estimated that, as of January 8 this year, the value of emergency procurement contracts awarded in response to Hurricane Melissa has exceeded J$5 billion.
Chief Public Procurement Policy Officer at the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service, Jovell Barrett, told JIS News that the emergency procurement facility has been used extensively since the passage of the hurricane in October 2025 to provide essential assistance and restore critical services.
He explained that the contracts, as published on the Government of Jamaica Electronic Procurement Portal (GOJEP), cover a wide range of goods and services, from road repairs to the provision of relief supplies.
According to Mr Barrett, the procurement activity includes the acquisition of container homes by the National Housing Trust, the supply of food items by the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management, and response operations by several key agencies. These include the National Solid Waste Management Authority and the National Water Commission, which procured trucks, water tanks, and tipper trucks to support emergency recovery efforts. He also noted that the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining has been involved in similar response activities.
Mr Barrett said the publication of contract award notices is intended to ensure full transparency, allowing the public to view the contracts and gain a clearer understanding of the level of expenditure to date.
He explained that citizens can access this information by visiting the GOJEP website, selecting the contract award notice tab, and filtering by the emergency procurement procedure. This will display all emergency procurement notices that have been published so far.
He added that under the regulations, contract award notices must be published on GOJEP within 30 days of the award date. As a result, not all contracts are currently reflected on the system.
Several procuring entities are still in the process of submitting their notices, Mr Barrett said, and once this exercise is completed, a more accurate figure will be available.
The Public Procurement Act of 2015 provides for emergency procurement but originally restricted it to single source arrangements. However, the law was amended in 2025 to exempt emergency procurement from the standard methods and procedures required under normal circumstances, allowing for a faster and more flexible response during national emergencies.
Source: (Jamaica Information Service)
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