Jamaica and Guyana to Explore Housing Solutions

GEORGETOWN, Guyana – Jamaica’s prime minister Andrew Holness on Thursday said his country and Guyana would explore ways to work together on housing development. 

Currently on a two-day visit to Guyana, he told the opening of the International Building Expo 2026 that there is scope for working together in the housing sector.

“I believe there are opportunities for Jamaica and Guyana to collaborate in the housing development sphere, particularly as it relates to labor 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,” he said.

Holness recently told the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce that the country would have to eventually prepare itself for imported labour to forge ahead with the massive development projects that are in the pipeline.

According to Holness Jamaica has already built 10,000 of the proposed 42,000 housing solutions, but the “greatest constraint” to building at scale is the availability of contractors, labour and technical skills that could operate with new innovations and new materials.

He also said the speed of government itself in giving planning and construction approvals were among Jamaica’s challenges.

Holness estimated that Jamaica has a housing deficit of approximately 150,000 housing solutions, and his administration has undertaken to directly provide 70,000 through the various agencies of government.

He praised the Guyana government for fast-tracking the processing of titles for housing lands and its one-stop mechanism for processing applications.

He was also pleased to hear that the Guyana government has a taken on with great courage the efficiency of the government bureaucracy in delivering the approvals for housing, through the one-stop system that has cut approval times from as high as three years to now three months.

Meanwhile, prime minister Holness used the opportunity to thank the Guyana government and the Guyana Defence Force soldiers in the reconstruction of houses and other buildings in the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa’s devastation last year.

“I must say that the members of your defense force did quite an amazing job, and all the reports of the people who benefited is that the workmanship was at the highest standard, and please convey to them again my great appreciation, but Jamaica will recover, and we have already started to recover,” he said.