Senator puts Jamaica’s decade-long capital spending gap at J$96.3 billion

Opposition Senator Ramon Small-Ferguson is urging Jamaica’s Government to publish a programme for overcoming public-investment delays, after arguing that capital spending fell J$96.3 billion short of original budgets across ten fiscal years.

In its October 12 report, the Jamaica Observer described his contribution to the Senate’s State of the Nation Debate on October 9. Small-Ferguson, also chief executive of Barita Investments, said approximately J$635.7 billion was originally budgeted by central government for capital expenditure between 2016/17 and 2025/26, while approximately J$539.4 billion was spent.

He said expenditure was below the original allocation in nine of those ten years. His cumulative calculation distinguished J$61.8 billion arising from budget reductions from another J$34.5 billion left unspent against revised allocations.

The distinction matters to the debate about delivery. Reducing an allocation changes the amount government plans or authorises to spend. Underspending against the revised allocation means actual expenditure then falls below that adjusted amount. Small-Ferguson combined both when comparing delivery with the original commitments.

Capital expenditure finances assets intended to support public services and production over time, including roads, water systems and hospitals. A budget allocation provides a spending framework; completing the intended work also requires procurement, project preparation and implementation.

For 2023/24, Small-Ferguson cited J$75.4 billion in the original capital budget and J$55.9 billion in expenditure, leaving a J$19.5 billion difference. He put the gap against original allocations at J$22.5 billion in 2024/25 and J$14.8 billion in 2025/26.

He credited economic reforms begun under former Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, when Peter Phillips was finance minister, for creating room in the public finances that the Andrew Holness administration could use for investment. His criticism was that this capacity had not been translated consistently into delivery.

Small-Ferguson used existing infrastructure programmes to describe what he regarded as the scale of the missed investment. His illustration included four Cornwall Regional Hospital redevelopments, two SPARK programmes, ten Spanish Town Hospital redevelopment projects, seven Rio Cobre Water Treatment projects and 100 health centres.

He said those comparisons together amounted to approximately J$92.5 billion, which was J$3.8 billion below his calculated shortfall. They were an illustration of potential scale, not an announcement that those projects had been funded or would be built.

The senator argued that delayed infrastructure also imposes costs beyond government accounts. Transport operators face repairs, farmers lose time and produce on the journey to market, businesses lose productive hours without dependable water and patients wait for improved health facilities, he said.

He acknowledged that the pandemic and subsequent hurricanes created extraordinary demands on the budget. But he argued that these pressures could not explain a delivery problem persisting throughout the decade, including years when conditions were better.

Small-Ferguson said recurring procurement difficulties and capacity constraints should be met with a programme to correct them. He proposed that, within six months, government lay before Parliament the principal sources of delay, the reforms needed, the institution responsible for each reform and an implementation deadline.