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“The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten.” — Benjamin Franklin

There is an old engineering lesson that experienced builders quietly understand, but young politicians, impatient populations, and ambitious governments sometimes forget. The most dangerous phase of any major project is not when the front loaders arrive or the concrete is poured. The most dangerous phase often occurs much earlier, during the moment when enthusiasm begins to outrun discipline. It is the stage where urgency starts to pressure caution, where timelines begin to intimidate due diligence, and where the desire to “get things done” views oversight as obstruction rather than protection. History repeatedly shows that civilisations rarely suffer from a lack of ambition. More often, they suffer because they abandoned the process in pursuit of speed.

Jamaica’s passionate debate surrounding the proposed National Reconstruction and Redevelopment Authority (NaRRA) is therefore about far more than a single institution. Depending on whom one asks, NaRRA represents either a bold mechanism capable of accelerating national development or a potentially dangerous concentration of executive power capable of weakening hard-won governance safeguards. Yet beneath the politics lies a deeper national conversation that Jamaica urgently needs to have: how does a country build faster without dismantling the very systems designed to protect public money, public trust, and long-term national stability?

This debate should not be reduced to partisan talking points because both sides are raising legitimate concerns. Jamaica undeniably faces a development frustration. Infrastructure projects often move slowly through overlapping approval systems, procurement delays, financing bottlenecks, environmental reviews, land acquisition challenges, and administrative inefficiencies. Citizens see roads unfinished, drainage projects delayed, schools deteriorating, water systems ageing, and housing demands escalating while governments wrestle with procedural complexity. In that context, the appeal of a centralised authority capable of coordinating strategic projects more rapidly becomes understandable.

The potential advantages of NaRRA are therefore neither imaginary nor trivial. A well-designed authority could improve coordination, strengthen technical project preparation, accelerate reconstruction initiatives, and potentially attract larger pools of development financing and private capital. Faster project preparation could reduce costly delays that often plague public investment projects across developing countries. In a country vulnerable to hurricanes, flooding, climate shocks, infrastructure deficits, and fiscal constraints, there is legitimate logic behind exploring mechanisms capable of improving national execution capacity.

Yet the concerns raised by critics are equally important because public investment management is not simply about building things quickly. It is about ensuring that the right projects are selected, properly appraised, transparently procured, fiscally sustainable, economically justified, competently managed, and independently reviewed before billions of dollars are committed. The central concern surrounding NaRRA is not speed itself. The concern is what may happen if speed begins overriding disciplined investment governance.

That distinction matters enormously.

Public Investment Management, often referred to globally as PIM, exists precisely because governments around the world have learned painful lessons about what happens when large projects bypass rigorous appraisal and accountability systems. International institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and Inter-American Development Bank consistently emphasise transparent project selection, ex ante appraisal, cost-benefit analysis, affordability assessment, risk management, procurement integrity, gateway reviews, portfolio prioritisation, monitoring and evaluation, and post-project assessment. These mechanisms exist because public resources are finite, and poor investment decisions can burden countries with debt, exposure to corruption, stranded assets, and infrastructure failures that last for generations.

Jamaica itself has spent years strengthening this architecture through public financial management reforms and the development of a formal Public Investment Management System. The evolution of the Public Investment Management Secretariat into the Public Investment Appraisal Branch reflected recognition that project governance could no longer rely solely on political enthusiasm or ministerial discretion. Investment decisions increasingly require structured appraisal methodologies, economic analysis, prioritisation frameworks, fiscal scrutiny, and portfolio discipline. The principle was simple: not every project that is politically attractive is economically viable, fiscally sustainable, or developmentally strategic.

This is where the debate becomes particularly interesting.

One of the deeper questions emerging beneath the NaRRA discussion is whether Jamaica truly requires an entirely new authority at all. After all, the country already spent years building a Public Investment Management architecture specifically designed to coordinate project appraisal, prioritisation, monitoring, implementation oversight, emergency response capability, and investment governance.

Through PIAB and the broader PIMS framework, Jamaica already possesses procedures for emergency procurement, accelerated implementation pathways, disaster response mechanisms, fiscal scrutiny, portfolio management, and structured project oversight. The government already has significant authority under existing legislation and regulations to advance urgent national projects during emergencies while preserving transparency, auditability, and accountability.

In principle, therefore, Jamaica already has a system designed to balance urgency with discipline.

One of the enduring strengths of the Public Investment Management System has been its ability to bring critical stakeholders to the same table before major investment decisions are finalised. One of the recurring challenges within government is that agencies often operate within their own mandates, priorities, and information silos. Too frequently, the left hand does not fully know what the right hand is planning. The PIMS framework was deliberately designed to reduce that risk by creating opportunities for planners, financiers, implementing agencies, procurement specialists, technical experts, regulators, and policy makers to collectively examine projects before significant public resources are committed. That collaborative scrutiny does not guarantee perfect decisions, but it significantly increases the likelihood that potential risks, duplication, affordability concerns, operational implications, and implementation challenges are identified early rather than discovered after contracts have been signed and public funds expended.

This raises a critical question. Is the challenge truly a lack of institutional mechanisms, or is it a question of operational effectiveness, enforcement, capacity, coordination, and political will within the mechanisms already in place?

That distinction may ultimately be the most important issue in the entire debate.

If existing institutions are underperforming because of staffing shortages, bureaucratic inefficiencies, weak interagency coordination, inadequate technical capacity, or inconsistent enforcement, then the long-term solution may be strengthening those institutions rather than creating parallel structures that duplicate functions already contemplated within the current governance framework.

Otherwise, Jamaica risks sending an unfortunate signal that carefully constructed governance systems can simply be bypassed whenever they become politically inconvenient or operationally frustrating.

Institutional maturity is not tested when systems operate smoothly during calm periods. It is tested when governments face intense pressure to move quickly without abandoning the safeguards designed to protect public money, fiscal stability, and national credibility.

History offers numerous examples of what can happen when governance becomes secondary to execution. Malaysia’s 1MDB scandal demonstrated how weak oversight and concentrated authority can create opportunities for extraordinary misuse of public funds. Even within advanced economies, Boston’s “Big Dig” became synonymous with cost overruns, delays, governance failures, and public frustration despite operating within a mature institutional environment.

The lesson is not that development should slow down. The lesson is that complexity and urgency increase the need for disciplined governance rather than reduce it.

Equally important is the danger of allowing extraordinary governance arrangements to become normalised. Around the world, emergency mechanisms introduced during crises often outlive the crises themselves. Temporary structures created to bypass bureaucracy can gradually weaken institutional checks and balances if robust accountability frameworks, parliamentary oversight, procurement transparency, independent auditing, and clear sunset provisions are not maintained.

Public trust depends not only upon what governments build, but also upon whether citizens believe the systems governing those investments remain fair, transparent, rules-based, and resistant to abuse.

At its best, NaRRA could become a catalyst for more efficient reconstruction, stronger coordination, and accelerated investment delivery. Conversely, it could unintentionally create governance vulnerabilities if institutional discipline becomes secondary to execution speed.

The real objective, however, should not be to choose between NaRRA and PIMS. The objective should be to create a system where reconstruction can move at emergency speed while remaining subject to rigorous appraisal, transparent procurement, independent oversight, fiscal discipline, and measurable developmental outcomes.

Speed without governance creates recklessness. Governance without execution creates paralysis. Mature states understand that sustainable development requires both.

Perhaps that is the larger opportunity hidden within this debate. Jamaica can use this moment not simply to discuss one authority, but to evaluate how the nation prioritises projects, measures economic returns, manages fiscal exposure, strengthens implementation capacity, and determines whether completed projects actually deliver the outcomes they promised.

The conversation should therefore not descend into accusations, fearmongering, or political score-settling. Jamaica’s development challenges are real. So too are the governance risks associated with concentrated authority and weakened safeguards. Serious countries confront both realities honestly.

The quality of a nation’s infrastructure can never be separated from the quality of the systems used to approve, finance, govern, and oversee it. Roads, bridges, seaports, airports, schools, hospitals, water systems, and reconstruction projects may physically shape a country’s future, but it is governance that ultimately determines whether those structures become lasting national assets or expensive monuments to impatience.

As this debate continues, this writer wishes Ambassador Major General (Ret’d) Antony Anderson every success as he navigates what is undoubtedly one of the most complex governance and development challenges facing the country. The task before him is not simply one of accelerating project delivery. It is the far more difficult challenge of demonstrating that speed and accountability need not be opposing objectives. If Jamaica can emerge from this discussion with stronger institutions, clearer accountability, improved execution capacity, and greater public confidence in how national investments are managed, then the country will have achieved something far more important than the creation of any single authority.

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Douglas Levermore, MBA, JP, is an independent management consultant and the founding Executive Director of Jamaica’s Public Investment Management Secretariat (PIMSEC)—the government unit established to strengthen project appraisal, fiscal discipline, and oversight of public investment, now known as the Public Investment Appraisal Branch (PIAB) within the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service. He also serves as a FINRA arbitrator and a commissioned Notary Public in the Commonwealth of Virginia. With experience advising governments, international development partners, public bodies, and private-sector organisations on governance, public investment management, organisational performance, and strategic reform, Douglas brings a practical, results-oriented perspective to his writing on social issues, leadership, management lessons, and organisational strategy. He is available for select international consulting, advisory, keynote speaking, and project-based engagements and may be contacted at [email protected].