Prime Minister Andrew Holness is encouraging Jamaicans in the diaspora, people like me, to return home to live and work in Jamaica, thus contributing to economic development and population growth.

It is not the first time that we overseas Jamaicans have been encouraged to turn a brain drain into a brain gain and my years serving on the Jamaica Diaspora Advisory Board, the predecessor of the current Global Jamaica Diaspora Council, the experience of moving back three times and now being on the island every month for a week or more to conduct business, informs this column which is meant to rip off the band-aid and discuss the realities of the Jamaican Diaspora returning home and the realities that prevent many from doing so.

Vision 2030 Jamaica is the national development plan for the country, and the national vision statement is to make “Jamaica, the place of choice to live, work, raise families, and do business”, yet almost none of the medium-term socioeconomic policy framework reports that were to track the progress of the various national outcomes have been published every three years. The last one that I have is from 2009-2012.

Before you can ask someone to pick up and move back home, you must understand why they initially moved and what has kept them from coming back. Most people I meet in the diaspora are surprised that I spend so much time in Jamaica, much less invest in Jamaican companies, because they have personal frustration stories about dealing with setting up a business, opening a bank account, addressing GCT and getting work done in a timely manner.

These complaints are only a surprise to people with their heads in the sand because Jamaica’s low productivity and poor customer service are well-known. The foreword to Vision 2030 Jamaica was written by then director-general of the Planning Institute of Jamaica, Wesley Hughes, and it had two sentences that always stood out to me for their honesty:

“Many social and economic problems pre-exist the current crisis. Partly due to our neglect of long-term issues, our nation has suffered from inadequacies since achieving Independence in 1962 which has led to poor GDP growth performance, high levels of debt, unacceptable levels of unemployment and poverty, crime and violence, low levels of skills, weak infrastructure, and uncompetitive industries that produce low value commodities.”

“Important issues that emerged during the consultation phase were for: greater access and opportunities; efficient delivery of health, education, justice and security services; a more inclusive society which fosters a greater sense of hope, particularly the young; greater development of rural areas; protection of the environment; and a strong desire to preserve the positive transformational aspects of our culture and heritage.”

These still resonate today, and as someone who has moved home three times and worked in corporate Jamaica, I can relate to the concerns many Jamaicans abroad have, although I do think that more progress has been made than many realise.

Let’s go through the complaints versus the progress that is desired:

High levels of debt 

Jamaica was drowning in debt, with high interest rates stifling business investment and starving the private sector of capital by offering insane rates on government debt due to the inability to borrow from abroad. That has been solved to the point that Jamaica is now a global case study on how to execute a debt exchange without causing hyperinflation or collapsing an economy.

Unacceptable levels of unemployment and poverty

Jamaica now has the lowest unemployment level since Independence, as measured using the same standards of Developed Countries. We are now more focused on the quality of the jobs and the pay than the unemployment rate, and that is a good thing. Poverty continues to trend down, with Hurricane Melissa significantly impacting that trend.

Crime and violence 

The single biggest complaint that I used to get at diaspora events was the crime rate, murder rate specifically, and the lack of feeling safe in many parts of Jamaica, especially Kingston.

While some argue that the numbers are fudged, the reported crime rate and murder rate is down significantly, and I attest to feeling much safer in Kingston when I am there each month. Feeling safe is even more important than the numbers being reported. 

Yes, many of us are concerned by the high number of extrajudicial killings because it could be one of us or a family member one day, and we await the body cameras being deployed so that we can strengthen our trust in the police force.

If you come from some areas of Jamaica, you do not trust the police, and that is just a fact. Migrating from that area to the US, UK, Canada or another country does not erase your lived experience before you left nor the stories your friends on the ground are sharing. I grew up in Kingston 6, so my interactions with the police were positive, but I recognise that my lived experience is quite different from the majority of Jamaicans who used to be asked to “lef’ or write” when being pulled over and at risk of receiving a ticket.

My interactions with members of the force over the last 12 months have been so good that I now have friends with whom I feel confident hanging out for a drink.

Low levels of skills 

This continues to be a real problem and it explains why the Chinese companies have been able to win so many construction jobs. Local Jamaicans all have the same reasons and it is more about the attitude of Jamaican workers than just their skills. The “Eat a food” mentality is still too rampant in Jamaica and once you live and work abroad, you have even lower tolerance for shoddy workmanship and poor work ethic.

Weak infrastructure 

Kingston to Ocho Rios in 45 minutes and Montego Bay to Kingston via Knutsford Express for US$20 in under three hours still surprises Jamaicans abroad when I tell them.

You can tell who hasn’t visited Jamaica recently and hasn’t kept up with the highway development! Yes, there is more work to do, especially with the rest of the roads, drainage, timely repairs of potholes, sewer lines and so forth. However, Jamaica in 2026 is far different from the Jamaica I left in 1996 or the Jamaica I returned to in 2000, 2005 and 2008.

While I left Jamaica for educational opportunities in the US and have moved back home multiple times to play football with Real Mona FC and work at Jamaica National, most people I have met abroad moved for economic reasons.

That is where “greater access to opportunities” comes into play because encouraging Jamaicans abroad to move back home hits a wall; The cost of living is not that much lower than in a developed country, but the salaries are far lower. It does have a better quality of life in some areas but worse in other areas so it comes down to the tradeoffs a person is willing to make.

If you have young children and are not able to get them into the 15 best schools across the island, then you are going to be worried about resources and behaviour/socialisation. If you do not want to produce your tax returns from abroad, then it is much harder to get a loan to buy a car when you have been away and apply for that loan, which means using the bus service, in the places it is available, or the expensive taxi alternatives.

Driving in Jamaica is also not for the faint of heart, and each time I see taxis make the same illegal moves in the exact same turn lanes, I question whether or not Jamaica is actually serious about addressing an obvious problem. The indiscipline in society is shocking, but it stands out more to those of us who are used to something different.

Healthcare

Healthcare is raised as a major concern, with hospitals taking significantly longer to be upgraded, constant social media and WhatsApp appeals for blood to be donated in the name of a specific person or stories about trying to find a working MRI machine, send the wrong message.

It seems that politicians and wealthy Jamaicans can just fly to Cayman or Miami, so they can’t relate to what the masses actually deal with. If we return to Jamaica, we will be getting older, not younger, so healthcare is one of the biggest concerns, and that has not been satisfactorily addressed.

Jamaica has advantages and disadvantages like anywhere else in the world, and once you have a US, UK or Canadian passport as well as work experience, you have far more options to consider, and where your navel string is buried does not carry as much weight as the Prime Minister would like it to carry. 

The reality is that some of us can move back to Jamaica and thrive, me being an example, but many others do not have the same experiences that I had nor have they maintained their social networks in Jamaica so it isn’t just moving back home for them, it is truly a reset, a new beginning in a vaguely familiar country.

As someone actively considering relocating to Jamaica once again, I will use my next column to share my thought process so that Local Jamaicans can understand what some of us in the Jamaican Diaspora are actually looking for in order to make Jamaica our home base.

David Mullings is founder and chairman of Blue Mahoe Holdings Limited, a Bahamas-based impact investment firm focused on the Global South. Send comments and feedback to [email protected].