Opposition Leaders calls for more post-hurricane support for small businesses

Opposition Leader Mark Golding is calling for a clear support programme to help small businesses recover from the lingering impact of Hurricane Melissa.

Mr Golding has criticised the government for what he describes as inadequate support for struggling businesses across Jamaica. He says farmers who suffered significant losses from the hurricane are also facing a similar lack of assistance.

The Opposition Leader, speaking Monday on Radio Jamaica’s Beyond the Headlines, said the effects are being felt across the wider economy, which is contracting, but in respect of the small business sector, he charged that “they've received nothing.”

“There are many, many businesses that were impacted by Melissa; people’s stalls, people's shops, their stock in trade, their working capital destroyed, their physical assets destroyed, and there's been no program to get them back on their feet.”

While conceding that “some farmers have received help,” he said “others haven’t.”

Against the background of this charge that there has been too little support for the small business sector, he said “it's no wonder that the economy is underperforming.”

“We've had three consecutive quarters of negative real GDP growth, the final quarter of 2025 when the hurricane hit and the two quarters after that up to June. And there's a sense that this quarter we're in now, which ends in September, may well be negative as well.”

Assistance programme

The Opposition Leader said a more substantial programme of assistance is needed to help boost the economy.

“In those circumstances, when you have businesses that have been wiped out, you have eight point eight billion US worth of damage to physical assets in the country and a much bigger number of overall economic impact,” he said. 

Accordingly, he called for “a programme to help these businesses get back on their feet and get the economy moving in a positive direction.”

“Bearing in mind that we've also seen high inflation with nearly eight per cent inflation recorded for August, which is well in excess of the upper band of the Bank of Jamaica's inflation target, and which may well, given what's happening internationally, result in an increase in interest rates in Jamaica. So that's all part of it as well. So our view is that in a situation where the economy is, is contracting, you need to have a countercyclical measure to address that. And that is what we're calling for, um, a, a support program to help businesses get back on their feet.”

Golding added that the mechanism in place under the ROOFS programme to assist with rebuilding homes damaged during hurricane Melissa is inadequate, given the scale of the damage caused by the hurricane last year.

He also accuses the government of being slow to respond to the needs of people who require housing assistance.