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Funds will be transferred in the first week of April to start COVID-19 vaccination and recovery programme

Finance Minister Dr Nigel Clarke has outlined the details of the Government’s much-trumpeted $60-billion Social and Economic Recovery and Vaccine Programme, known as SERVE Jamaica.

The ambitious SERVE Jamaica programme is now being rolled out with the funds being transferred in the first week of April.

Clarke provided the details of the programme yesterday (March 9), as he opened the 2021-2022 Budget Debate in Parliament. SERVE Jamaica will consist of $10.5 billion in special resources for the Ministry of Health, including $6 billion for the procurement, storage, distribution and administration of vaccines.

This is in addition to the allocation of $1 billion for personal protective equipment, or PPEs, $1 billion for drugs and reagents, $2 billion for regional health authorities to pay arrears to suppliers and $500 million for other COVID-19 related expenditure. The Government has put the funding aside under the SERVE Jamaica Programme to make the attainment of herd immunity in a single financial year fiscally feasible, and these funds will be transferred in the first week of April.

Upgrading health care and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines

Another critical part of the SERVE Jamaica programme is the upgrading of  physical infrastructure islandwide for health care and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines. As such, Clarke disclosed that the administration has allocated $31.1 billion to an infrastructure programme to drive jobs and economic activity, improve productivity, and strengthen resilience.

Of this amount, $17.7 billion has been allocated to the Southern Coastal Highway Improvement Project under the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation. This allocation will allow infrastructural improvements on roadways between Harbour View and Yallahs and for construction of the new toll road between May Pen in Clarendon and Williamsfield in Manchester to continue.

In making the point that all economic activity requires transportation, the finance minister argued that ”by making transportation of people and goods more efficient we improve the productivity of our economy. The improved access provided by the project will also open up eastern Jamaica for new housing, commercial and industrial development”.

The alignment in Manchester will open up mineral rich land to the possibility of mining. All of the aggregate required will be locally supplied and will require transportation providing trucking opportunities.

More SERVE Jamaica allocations

Eight billion dollars is allocated to a special public investment infrastructure programme to improve productivity and increase resilience with the installation of drains, water, wastewater and sewer infrastructure, as well as the widening and dualisation of major thoroughfares, the construction of sidewalks and other related road upgrading, all of which opens up more areas for development. A further $3.7 billion is allocated to secondary roads, repairing roads across Jamaica and $1.2 billion for the Montego Bay Bypass along with $0.5 billion for construction of new police divisional headquarters in Westmoreland and new forensic pathology suite.

“We are building bridges, we are widening major thoroughfares, we are installing drains, water, wastewater infrastructure and we are repairing secondary roads and we will be creating jobs, jobs, jobs.”

Dr Nigel Clarke, minister of finance and the public service

“This will be the largest programme allocation to physical infrastructure tabled by any Government of Jamaica in budget history. And, importantly, this is pure infrastructure spend, not merely capital expenditure which can take many forms,” Clarke told parliamentarians.

He reported that the Andrew Holness administration is building highways, “we are building bridges, we are widening major thoroughfares, we are installing drains, water, wastewater infrastructure and we are repairing secondary roads and we will be creating jobs, jobs, jobs. We expect the infrastructure component of the SERVE Jamaica Programme to generate thousands of construction jobs to help us recover stronger”.

In addition to healthcare and infrastructure, the SERVE Jamaica Programme is also focused on promoting economic activity and growth in order to generate employment. As such $5 billion is targeted financing for businesses.

Disaggregated SERVE Jamaica allocations

·       $2 billion for lending to MSME’s

·       $1.7 billion for Production Incentives to farmers and continued rehabilitation of roads in rural farming communities to boost recovery in the agricultural sector

·       $1.8 billion to expand Wi-Fi and broadband in schools, communities, and town centres, in particular in rural areas through the Ministry of Science, Energy and Technology.

·       $8.1 billion in targeted social support above and beyond the $16.4 billion already announced

·       $300 million to the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development for Paint the City an innovative initiative that will beautify and upgrade select town centres across Jamaica, generating thousands of temporary jobs while also improving our environment. Paint the City will engage thousands of youths in painting murals in 21 communities in Kingston in areas of high historical and cultural value that have high levels of visibility

·       $200 million to the National Works Agency for river training activity, which will employ Jamaicans in rural Jamaica in necessary disaster mitigation work, protecting lives and livelihoods.

·       $160 million to the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, above and beyond customary allocation, for the additional support of the destitute, indigent and infirmed through Poor Relief.

·       $50 million to the Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport to provide further support to those in the entertainment and sporting fields, who continue to be hard hit by the pandemic

·       $189 million in additional COVID-19 related support to the Constituency Development Fund towards digital devices in collaboration with eLearning.

·       $140 million to the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development for Municipal Corporations to provide digital devices in collaboration with e-Learning.

·       $40 million to the Ministry of Labour and Social Security for COVID-19 grants for the disabled community