Integrity Commission seeks review of J$5 billion in Melissa recovery contracts

Jamaica’s Integrity Commission has called for full documentation and independent review of 476 government contracts valued at J$5 billion that public bodies identified as Hurricane Melissa recovery awards.

The contracts were awarded in the final quarter of 2025, mainly through emergency or single-source procurement, the Jamaica Observer reports. The commission’s special report on public procurement was tabled in the House of Representatives on October 13, 2026. It examines awards in 2025 alongside trends from 2006 to 2025.

Within the identified recovery group, 182 contracts worth J$3.9 billion used emergency procurement. Another 262 used single-source procurement and 32 used restricted bidding. Emergency procedures permit faster responses to urgent needs; single-source purchasing approaches one supplier, while restricted bidding invites a limited group to compete.

Kevon Stephenson, the commission’s Director of Investigation, said these awards warrant records and independent review by the relevant authorities. They will be examined further in the report on its ongoing special monitoring programme. The request concerns both the contracts and the documentation supporting them.

The identified recovery awards sit within a broader increase in emergency contracting. Across 2025, that method accounted for J$16.3 billion in 588 contracts, a 63% rise in value over 2024. The final quarter alone accounted for J$10.5 billion in 331 contracts.

Of the fourth-quarter total, J$9.7 billion in 278 awards was made on or after October 28, 2025, when Hurricane Melissa struck Jamaica. A contract falling after the hurricane is not automatically the same as an award explicitly identified by a public body as recovery-related; the commission examines both the timing and the way spending was recorded.

Stephenson acknowledged that emergency procurement was necessary to preserve life and restore essential services. He nevertheless pointed to heightened risks from the scale of contracting, the size of some individual awards, emergency methods used for contracts outside the identified recovery group, and exemptions from ordinary rules.

Those circumstances make the later review of records important even where immediate action was needed. The report calls for scrutiny of how the awards were made and what was obtained through the spending.

The commission found a further recording problem in 360 single-source awards worth J$840 million during 2025. Their descriptions referred to a hurricane, but they were recorded as ordinary single-source contracts. Of that group, 337 awards were made in the final quarter.

Some may already be included among the 262 single-source awards identified as recovery-related. Adding the two groups would therefore risk counting a contract twice. The commission said the records suggest emergency spending may have been understated and identification of disaster-related contracts was incomplete.

The findings do not establish that contracts were improperly awarded or that wrongdoing occurred. The commission recommends stronger checks after emergency spending, including requiring public bodies to report on their procurement following a declared disaster and examining whether contracts delivered value for money.

The special monitoring programme remains in progress, with further examination of hurricane response and recovery procurement expected separately. That follow-up is the next reported step in scrutinising the awards.