For many years, people believed Jamaica couldn’t build big projects because we didn’t have the money. That was the old thinking. Today, that is no longer true. In fact, Government has doubled its capital budget over the last decade. The real problem has been how slowly we turn plans into action. Too often, our own systems delay projects. Before anything is built, it must go through several steps: approval, design, procurement, and contracts. These processes are important to protect taxpayers’ money, but they can take months or even years. Many times, construction is actually the quickest part. So our challenge is not funding, it is fixing our systems so Government can move faster and deliver projects to the people when they need them most.(Andrew Holness)