Generation 2000’s attempt to use the prolonged disruption of Jamaica’s schools since Hurricane Melissa to justify the National Reconstruction and Resilience Authority (NaRRA) insults the intelligence of the Jamaican people. Government failure does not prove that a new authority was needed. It proves that existing institutions were not properly organised, resourced and mobilised.

ODPEM’s own Comprehensive Disaster Management framework defines recovery as including the restoration of basic services and the repair of physical, social and economic damage. Its preparedness framework contemplates planning, organising, training, inter-agency coordination, resource allocation and testing plans before disasters occur.

The facts undercut G2K’s argument. The National Disaster Risk Management Council (NDRMC) has moved away from ceremonial routines toward practical response reform. It held a Regional After Action Review with CDEMA and ODPEM in Kingston from March 10 to 12, examining the response and identifying operational gaps, then on May 13 a Strategic Working Session led by ODPEM Director General Commander Alvin Gayle converted those findings into action items, including parish-level shelter management.

If these sessions happened six and eight months ago, G2K must explain why no school repair plan emerged. To complain eleven months after a hurricane that NaRRA was needed to “get things done,” when your party has governed for a decade with full power to reform legislation, streamline procurement and fix these very problems, is an insult to every Jamaican’s intelligence.

The Auditor General found that, as at February 23, 2026, ODPEM had spent only 1.8 per cent of $1.44 billion in Melissa relief donations, while Beryl funds from 2024 sat unused. That is not red tape. That is a planning and coordination failure inside institutions Jamaicans already fund.

Creating a new authority does not excuse a government from explaining why the machinery it already had was never made to work nearly one year after a natural disaster.