Over the past few weeks, the Houses of Parliament passed the National Reconstruction and Resilience Authority Act, 2026, the NaRRA Bill. It is a piece of legislation that this Council must take seriously and understand fully, because its implications for local government in Jamaica, and for this Corporation in particular, are significant and immediate. I want to urge everyone to acquaint yourselves with the content of the legislation.

Let me be direct about what concerns me as Mayor and as the head of the Kingston and St. Andrew Municipal Corporation. The KSAMC is a statutory regulatory authority. We exercise functions conferred on us by law: planning, building regulation, public health and infrastructure. Functions that exist to protect the people of Kingston and St. Andrew, to ensure that development in our communities is safe, compliant and in the public interest. Those functions are legal obligations, and they are the primary means by which this Corporation serves and protects our constituents.

The NaRRA Act fundamentally alters the relationship between this Corporation and the central government in the exercise of those functions. 

·       Under Section 21, NaRRA may convene this Corporation and set timelines and deadlines within which we must complete inspections, evaluations and decisions on applications submitted by the Authority. 

·       Under Section 22, NaRRA may issue written directives to this Corporation specifying how we must process those applications, including directives that require us to modify or make exceptions to zoning requirements, to proceed with consideration of an application even where another body's approval has not yet been given, and to rely on previously granted approvals for standardised designs rather than conducting independent assessments. 

·       Under Sections 23 and 24, if this Corporation does not comply with those directives, NaRRA may apply to the Minister for a step-in order, an order that, once granted, has full legal force as if this Corporation itself had made the decision. In plain terms, the Minister can make our regulatory decisions for us, override conditions we have attached to approvals, or grant approvals we have declined to give, and there is no requirement in the legislation that such an order be made public, gazetted, or reported to Parliament.

An authority appointed by the Prime Minister can direct how the KSAMC exercises its statutory planning and building regulatory functions. And if we do not comply, the Minister, not a court, not an independent tribunal, can simply step in and make the decision himself, with the full force of law, and the public need never know it happened.

These concerns are not mine alone. They have been raised by more than twenty-eight civil society organisations and governance advocates who called for stronger safeguards before the bill was passed. They were raised clause by clause, with specific legislative remedies, by the Parliamentary Opposition, which identified substantive concerns and proposed amendments to address them. It is deeply unfortunate that the government, in possession of those concerns from multiple credible sources, chose not to accept the majority of the valid amendments proposed. 

 I raise this to inform you. This Council must be clear-eyed about the legal environment in which we will operate. I ask you to go and do your own reading to understand the broad implications of the bill.

-His Worship the Mayor of Kingston, Councillor Andrew A. Swaby, JP