Jamaican builders say late government payments discourage reconstruction work

Jamaica’s principal builders’ association says unpaid invoices from public bodies are pushing contractors towards private projects, challenging the view that a shortage of major firms alone explains slow hurricane reconstruction.

Richard Mullings, president of the Incorporated Masterbuilders Association of Jamaica, told the Financial Gleaner that the explanation overlooks firms’ reasons for avoiding public work. The association represents most of the island’s major builders and construction contractors. He said private projects are more attractive when clients pay on time and government entities do not.

The disagreement follows Education Minister Dana Morris Dixon’s statement in September that too few grade-one, or top-tier, contractors were available to repair and rebuild schools damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Melissa almost a year earlier. Mullings pointed to an earlier recovery effort: some contractors, he said, still have not been paid for school repairs undertaken after Hurricane Beryl in July 2024.

Taking another reconstruction contract while awaiting payment for the previous one would leave a firm carrying more unpaid work. Mullings said delayed payment is a decades-old feature of government contracting, and that some entities hold Ministry of Finance warrants authorising payment but still fail to pay promptly. He linked that experience to declining interest in investing to serve public-sector clients.

Robert Morgan, the minister responsible for works, rejected the claim that contractors lack interest. Most remain willing to undertake government contracts, he told the Financial Gleaner. The newspaper reported that he offered no data with that response. The two positions leave a distinction between firms’ technical ability to build and their willingness to finance work while awaiting government payment.

Finance Minister Fayval Williams said at a conference in January that the Government was preparing a formal policy for receivables factoring. Under that arrangement, a contractor can sell an unpaid invoice to a financing provider for money sooner, helping bridge the period between delivering work and receiving payment.

The proposal addresses cash flow—the timing of money coming into and leaving a business. It could ease the strain caused by delayed payments and improve the circulation of money through the economy. Preparing a policy does not establish that a contractor-financing programme is already operating.

Mullings also argued that payment is part of a wider administrative problem. He criticised the time public bodies take to move projects from conception to implementation, and linked that bureaucracy to difficulty spending the capital budget. He disputed the practice of treating local contractor capacity as the explanation when government projects themselves take too long to reach the market.

Integrity Commission figures cited by the Financial Gleaner put public contract awards at 34,398, worth about J$370.7 billion, in the 2025–2026 financial year. Those figures cover public purchasing more broadly; the amount attributable to building and works contracts is unclear.

Mullings hopes the National Reconstruction and Resilience Authority, NaRRA, will remove obstacles to delivering public projects, while arguing that the country needs lasting reform. Prime Minister Andrew Holness announced the authority during the 2026–2027 Budget Debate as the vehicle for coordinating reconstruction, resilience-building and major infrastructure investment.

At that time, Holness said NaRRA would have special powers to accelerate approvals and procurement. Procurement determines how public bodies choose and purchase the works and services required for a project; slow procedures can delay the point at which an approved investment becomes a contract that a firm can execute.

Holness returned to that issue at the recent launch of the Jamaica Reconstruction and Resilience Oversight Committee, JAMRROC, saying the existing procurement framework could not support the pace required for NaRRA projects. JAMRROC will oversee NaRRA.