Kimone Francis - Senior Staff Reporter

The National Housing Trust’s headquarters in New Kingston.
April 5, 2026 by Kimone Francis - Senior Staff Reporter

Banks to pocket billions from NHT mortgage outsourcing

The National Housing Trust (NHT) has funnelled $1.1 billion to private banks to subsidise its External Financing Mortgage Programme (EFMP), a move that effectively outsources its mortgage book to protect a multibillion-dollar housing construction budget. The contributor-funded state-run entity is projected to pay a further $1.3 billion in interest to financial institutions for the 2025-26 fiscal year, it disclosed, following a Sunday Gleaner query.

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William Squier Gonzalez, UNOPS portfolio development adviser for Latin America and the Caribbean, speaking with The Sunday Gleaner at the newspaper’s North Street offices last Thursday.
March 29, 2026 by Kimone Francis

No solo rebuild

The United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) is warning that Jamaica’s recovery from the destruction of Hurricane Melissa will rise or fall on a single factor: Government, private interests,…
Transport Minister Daryl Vaz pours rum on one of the buses procured for the rural school bus programme during a blessing ceremony at Jamaica House in St Andrew in August 2025.
February 22, 2026 by Kimone Francis

WARNING LIGHTS

The watchdog signed off — but not before it barked. Access to Information documents obtained by The Sunday Gleaner reveal that the Public Procurement Commission (PPC) warned the transport ministry…
People wait their turns to board shared taxis in Havana, Cuba.
February 15, 2026 by Kimone Francis

Students in limbo

Caught between failing infrastructure in Cuba and what they described as a wall of diplomatic silence at home, Jamaican medical students are urging the Government to establish a formal bridge to local…
Neurosurgeon Dr Roger Hunter.
December 21, 2025 by Kimone Francis

Hunter takes aim at Tufton

Neurosurgeon Dr Roger Hunter has filed an application in the Supreme Court for an emergency judicial review, accusing Health and Wellness Minister Dr Christopher Tufton of dereliction of duty. At the…
Reconstruction work under way at Anthony Davis’ home at Edmund Ridge Estates in Montego Bay, St James.
December 9, 2025 by Kimone Francis

Edmund Ridge fury

Less than a year after moving into his new two-bedroom home at Edmund Ridge Estates in St James, homeowner Anthony Davis has begun extensive interior renovations. The house was among several severely…
The Edmund Ridge housing scheme in Montego Bay, St James, where most of the roofs were seriously damaged during the passage of Hurricane Melissa.
December 9, 2025 by Kimone Francis

Dream homes turned nightmares

A chorus of fury has erupted among homeowners of Edmund Ridge Estates in St James after Hurricane Melissa tore through the three-year-old housing scheme, ripping off roofs and flattening structures,…
Mortician Dywite Spence, a worker at Doyley’s Funeral Service, takes a break at 3 a.m. on Thursday at the Savanna-la-Mar Public General Hospital in Westmoreland after spending the last 10 hours retrieving the bodies of hurricane victims across the paris
December 9, 2025 by Kimone Francis

‘Bodies all over the place’

In the wake of Hurricane Melissa’s devastation, the air in Westmoreland hung heavy with dust and debris as mortician Dywite Spence began a grim journey – retrieving the bodies of those the storm had…
Barbara and Lincoln Robinson relate the terrifying encounter being swept away in their vehicle in raging floodwaters during a thunderstorm in New Kingston recently.
December 9, 2025 by Kimone Francis

An angel in the flood

What should have been a routine two-minute drive from Dominica Drive to Chelsea Manor turned into a harrowing 15-minute ordeal for an elderly couple, after their car was swept away by raging…
Carlton ‘Buggy’ Watson, another resident, claimed to have planted breadfruit trees on the land and said he had occupied it for more than two decades.
December 9, 2025 by Kimone Francis

'I don't make it bother me'

A decades-long dispute between retired politician Pearnel Charles Sr and residents in Old Pera, St Thomas, has flared up once again, sparking verbal confrontations and threats of displacement. The…