Fisheries Authority says boat contract awards inflated by 100-fold

The National Fisheries Authority (NFA) has clarified that the $6.65-billion value on a contract award notice for fishing boats and engines was a hundred times what it actually agreed to pay.

The notice, published in the Government’s procurement system, also carried an October 2026 award date.

“The contract value is $66,462,647.71,” Acting NFA CEO Dr Zahra Oliphant told the Financial Gleaner about the figure.

The notice, published in the Government’s procurement system, also carried an October 2026 award date. Oliphant said the contract was in fact awarded in February 2026.

“The notice was pushed by the system in error, with an incorrect date of October,” she said.

The gap between the two figures is $6.58 billion – more than the fisheries authority’s annual budget and a sum that would rank among the larger capital contracts awarded by any government agency this year.

The award went to Yamaha Engines Limited through a single-source procurement run under emergency provisions, which allow agencies to bypass competitive tendering after a disaster. Oliphant said the route was justified by the scale of the damage.

“Note that this was an emergency procurement in light of the disaster,” she said.

TWENTY BOATS BEFORE CHRISTMAS

The contract buys 20 fishing boats and 20 boat engines at 40 horsepower for fishers who lost vessels to Hurricane Melissa. Recipients pay nothing, and the authority expects to complete the handover within weeks.

“The aim is to have the programme concluded before Christmas,” Oliphant said.

That would put delivery roughly 10 months after the February award and 14 months after the storm. Melissa came ashore at New Hope, Westmoreland, on October 28, 2025 as a Category 5 hurricane, damaging more than 3,000 boats, some beyond repair, according to figures given by Agriculture and Fisheries Minister Floyd Green.

Beneficiaries were identified through post-disaster damage assessments and sit mainly along the western coastline. The NFA recorded damage in all 14 parishes, the heaviest from Manchester, and further westwards.

The 20 vessels are the second such batch secured since the storm. Green announced the $66-million allocation in late June, as distribution of an earlier 20 boats and engines.

Yamaha supplied engines at a February ceremony in Montego Bay that launched a grant programme for vessel repairs and engine replacement. Phase two of the recovery programme carries a $180-million budget, and the ministry said in March that it had spent more than $300 million in the sector since the storm.

Fisheries production topped $30 billion in 2023, the Jamaica Information Service reported, and Oliphant told a JIS forum in April 2024 that the sector contributed 1.04 per cent of gross domestic product and 12.79 per cent of the agriculture sector.

Yamaha has supplied the authority before, including boats handed over at a February ceremony in Montego Bay that launched a grant programme for vessel repairs and engine replacement. Phase two of the recovery programme carries a $180-million budget, and the Government puts total post-hurricane spending in the sector above $300 million.

Fisheries production topped $30 billion in 2023, just over one per cent of gross domestic product and close to 13 per cent of agricultural output, Oliphant told a Jamaica Information Service forum in April 2024.

neville.graham@gleanerjm.com