Parliament approves suspension of fiscal rules to allow for Hurricane Melissa spending
Published:Wednesday | December 3, 2025 | 9:57 PM
A motion to suspend the fiscal rules to allow for additional spending towards Hurricane Melissa recovery efforts was on Tuesday scrapped and then re-tabled after a senior opposition lawmaker pointed to a flaw in the document.
Finance and the Public Service Minister Fayval Williams tabled the Financial Administration and Audit (Suspension of Fiscal Target Requirements) Order, 2025 Resolution, and subsequently asked for the motion to be approved.
However, in his contribution to the debate, Opposition Leader Mark Golding said the duration of the order spanned October 28, the day Hurricane Melissa hit Jamaica, to March 31, 2026.
Golding said the period covered by the order tabled by Williams was very short, noting that the parent law – the Financial Administration and Audit Act (FAA Act) – indicates that, in the wake of a disaster, the fiscal rules may be suspended for an additional year after the weather event.
“To my mind, you are selling yourself short, minister, by having it end in the financial year that the calamity occurred,” he said during the debate in Parliament on Tuesday.
He explained that another provision in the FAA Act also creates an even further extension to the relaxation of the fiscal rules of up to two years.
“That would give you two years potentially, plus the period between now and March, during which Jamaica could utilize this massive envelope of resources that were announced yesterday (Monday) to try and get the recovery going, without having to constrain expenditure to keep within the fiscal rules.”
In her response, Williams said it was a “mistake.”
According to Williams, she came to Parliament with speaking notes on the suspension of the fiscal rules.
“In fact, in the statement it does say for an initial period, terminating at the end of the financial year ending March 31, 2027, so that was a mistake.”
The debate was suspended, and Parliament had a recess to print the new ‘Order’ and have the minister sign it.
The order was re-tabled and affirmed.
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