Minister Aubyn Hill to Lead Strategic Plan for Reopening Community Shops

Minister of Industry, Investment and Commerce, Senator the Hon. Aubyn Hill, has been tasked with developing a strategic plan to support the reopening of small community shops across Jamaica in the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa.

Prime Minister, Dr. the Most. Hon. Andrew Holness, made the disclosure during a special press briefing at Jamaica House on Thursday (November 6).

He noted that local commerce has been severely impacted, with shops, markets, and pharmacies forced to close.

“We need to get those up. The private sector has a role to play in that, and I see where they have started, getting the gas stations open, ensuring that the large distributors are open, the large supermarkets and wholesales are open, especially in the urban areas. I like that,” he stated.

“But I also want the small shop in Adelphi or in Spring Mount, or wherever else, that those shops reopen. Now they can’t reopen for one main reason… they don’t have electricity, and the second is that supplies can’t get to them. The distributive trade… they supply thousands of shops every day with trucks going all over Jamaica. That has been hit and they can’t call to place orders, and some of them can’t access cash,” Dr. Holness added.

The Prime Minister further stated that the Jamaica Business Development Corporation (JBDC) and the Development Bank of Jamaica (DBJ) will be asked to assist in leading this initiative.

“One of the first things that we have done is, we have identified some generators, and we’re going to make those generators available. We’re going to start with 50 in the most impacted and remote communities… .  We will loan them the generators,” Dr. Holness said.

“But of course, there will be some requirements for compliance issues and to ensure that there are established operations that we can enter into cooperation with. So of course, we would have to verify that they are a legitimate operation. So we would ask the Justices of the Peace (JPs), the police, and other established persons in the area to vouch for their credibility,” he added.