Clean-up pushes MoBay Bay recovery as private sector turnout lags
Published:Sunday | December 14, 2025 | 3:02 PM
A one-off clean-up exercise aimed at accelerating Montego Bay’s post-Hurricane Melissa recovery was carried out on Sunday, but municipal officials acknowledged that private-sector participation fell short of expectations.
The Operation Restore Clean-Up Day, organised by the St James Municipal Corporation, was intended as a targeted intervention to address lingering debris and environmental issues weeks after the hurricane.
Chief Executive Officer of the Corporation, Naudia Crosskill, said the initiative was driven by necessity, as the municipality does not have the resources to restore the city on its own.
“We want to get back Montego Bay as close as possible to its pre-Melissa state, and to do that quickly,” Crosskill said. "But we do not have the resources to do this in a timely and equitable manner without volunteer support.”
While government agencies responded, Crosskill said private sector involvement was noticeably limited.
“What we saw today was more government participation than private sector involvement,” she said. “Ideally, we would have wanted a more even balance. What we had was closer to about 70 per cent government and 30 per cent private sector.”
Crosskill explained that the clean-up emerged from discussions at meetings of the parish’s Emergency Operations Committee and never intended to replace formal restoration work, but rather to provide a short-term push where possible.
She also highlighted downed and tangled utility cables as one of the most persistent unresolved issues across sections of the city, describing the situation as unsafe and unacceptable several weeks after Hurricane Melissa.
“These wires are a major problem,” Crosskill said. “At this stage, we would have expected that something better would have been done.”
Deputy Mayor, Councillor Dwight Crawford, who participated in the exercise, said the clean-up focused on areas including sections of Bogue, Howard Cooke Boulevard, Barnett Street, and the Jimmy Cliff Boulevard, where volunteers worked from early morning to remove debris and clear waterways.
Crawford indicated that some businesses and members of the Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce were present, however, of note is that the overall turnout did not reflect the scale of commercial activity that depends on the city’s cleanliness and functionality.
A drive through the areas that needed attention showed that restoring Montego Bay cannot be left solely to municipal authorities and called for greater shared responsibility among government, businesses, and civic groups.
Municipal officials said that while Sunday’s activity provided limited relief, the city’s full recovery will require more consistent engagement from all stakeholders, particularly the private sector, which benefits directly from Montego Bay’s role as Jamaica’s tourism capital.
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