Jamaica looking to learn from Guyana’s housing development – PM Holness

Prime Minister (PM) of Jamaica, Andrew Holness, has praised Guyana’s advancements in the housing sector, expressing his interest in working with Guyanese stakeholders to support his country’s housing development.
The Jamaican leader made these remarks on Thursday evening at the opening of the International Building Expo being held in Guyana. PM Holness is leading a delegation for a two-day state visit in Georgetown during he had high-level bilateral talks with President Dr Irfaan Ali and his Cabinet.

According to Holness, Guyana’s housing programme involves not just building homes but connecting them with roads and utilities – all of which together builds communities. This integrated approach, the Jamaican PM pointed out, offers an important lesson for the Caribbean region.
“We cannot plan housing separately from transportation, from sanitation, from schools, health facilities, digital connectivity, areas of employment, but more importantly, from how people live together as a community. And from what I have seen, and all that I have heard, it is clear that your President and his Ministers are visionary in this regard,” he stated.
The Jamaican PM disclosed that his country is also undergoing a housing boom to bridge the existing 150,000 housing deficit there. The Jamaican Government has committed to provide 70,000 of those solutions. In fact, the National Housing Trust in Jamaica will build 42,000 homes with 10,000 already built.
But even as the island nation continues to build out thousands of houses every year, PM Holness indicated that they are confronted with a number of constraints.
“The greatest constraint would be the supply side constraints. The availability of contractors who can build at scale, the availability of labour and technical skills that can operate with new innovations and new materials, and of course the speed of Government itself in giving planning and construction approvals. These have been our challenges,” he highlighted.
To this end, the Jamaican leader recognised and lauded interventions Guyana has put in place especially to address the issue of Government bureaucracy in delivering the approvals for housing projects.
Back in 2024, Guyana launched the Electronic Planning and Development Single Window System – an online portal that allows developers, planners, and citizens to submit land use and construction applications without visiting a physical office. This one-stop-shop system has reduced multi-agency approval times from as long as three years to now three months – something that the Jamaican Prime Minister was impressed by.
“That is to be applauded,” he declared, while indicating his intention to partner with the Guyana Government to adopt some of these measures in Jamaica.
“I believe there are opportunities for Jamaica and Guyana to collaborate in the housing development sphere, particularly as it relates to labour and the deployment of new technologies in construction, and I look forward to advancing these conversations with your President to see how best we can collaborate as two developing nations to improve our people’s access to housing,” PM Holness stated on Thursday evening.
Meanwhile, in response, President Dr Irfaan Ali declared during his feature address at the International Building Expo opening that the Guyana, including its private sector, is ready to partner with Jamaica.
“That is the only way we can demonstrate the level of growth and advancement in our business solutions,” the Guyanese leader stated.
Currently, Jamaica is recovering from the devastation caused by Hurricane Melissa in October 2025. Guyana had deployed a team from the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) to aid in the early rehabilitation efforts. The GDF contingent worked on some 200 homes across Jamaica and according PM Holness, their workmanship was of the highest standard.
Nevertheless, the Jamaican Head of State noted that as they rebuild, they are looking to do so better than before, learning from Guyana’s experience.
“We are going to rebuild what should have been there in the first place, and we’re going to rebuild better than what was there before. And that is why we have established the National Reconstruction and Resilience Agency, a special entity of Government with its own laws to fast-track development. And from the examples that we have seen here in Guyana, it is clear that we can build quickly and we can build well.”
“There is a culture in our public bureaucracy. I’m not sure it exists in Guyana anymore, because President Ali has courageously stamped it out… But there is a culture that if it didn’t take long, it wasn’t well done. And it is an affliction of Caribbean public administration that we need to change. This is the era of getting things done at the speed of thought, the time that we waste trying to perfect processes that are outdated. Artificial intelligence is narrowing and compacting the time to deliver it. New materials are being developed that changes the process of construction, and we must move with speed and intent to ensure that we are not left behind by the changes in technology, and that we don’t miss out on the opportunities created,” the Jamaican leader emphasised.