Senate Passes Legislation for Portmore Parish Designation

The Senate on Friday (February 28) passed the Counties and Parishes (Amendment) Act, 2025, which seeks to grant parish status to the Portmore City Municipality, making it Jamaica’s 15th parish.

The legislation was passed after 10 Government members voted in favour of it, with four Opposition members voting against it, following the call for divide.

Four Senators were absent.

Piloting the legislation, Leader of Government Business in the Senate and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Senator the Hon. Kamina Johnson Smith, said this is the first time in post-colonial independent Jamaica that a new parish is being created.

She said the Bill, through its conferment of parish status on Portmore seeks to significantly open the door of economic, social and political development for the people of Portmore.

Senator Johnson Smith added that it will increase their ability to chart their own course more autonomously and more effectively advocate and manage their own resources, which will be available for allocation.

“The transformation of Portmore into a parish is not only a value proposition in its own right and one to give greater equity to the citizens of Portmore, but it’s also a part of this Administration’s work to change the total architecture of Jamaica into a fully modern country economically, socially and politically speaking, so that all Jamaicans are proud of their country in the most complete way,” she said.

The new parish designation is being done nearly 158 years after the last parish boundary revision.

“The Parliament will declare the parish and then the boundaries will be sorted using the normal mechanisms of the ECJ (Electoral Commission of Jamaica) thereafter,” the Minister said.

Senator Johnson Smith advised that the Government will continue to develop Portmore.

“For the people of Portmore, more things still need to be done but, as they can see, what is happening around them at this point in time as they have been seeing are the roads being fixed, the [Resilience] Park being built, the thought being given to the hospital, the upgrades to the health centres, the outbuilding of the parish court, improvements to schools… all of this is happening. But there is still more… the vision of a Tech Park, of Portmore as the Silicon Valley of the Caribbean,” she said.

Among the Bill’s key provisions is the official designation of Portmore as a parish, to include Hellshire Hills, Goat Island, and the City of Portmore, which will be the parish capital. It excludes specific areas, such as Lakes Pen, Grange Lane, Lime Tree Grove, and Quarry Hill from the Parish of Portmore.

The legislation also provides for the creation of a map for the parish of Portmore and a description of the city.

The city of Portmore will incorporate the lands east of North Ascott, which include the Portmore Municipal Corporation and the Police Station, lands south of Braeton Parkway which comprise the Inland Revenue Department and commercial entities, parts of Naggo Head and lands north of Braeton Road.

“These are, of course, important law-enforcement and administrative entities that are essential to the management of the new parish of Portmore,” Senator Johnson Snith stated.

It also seeks to provide that any document or instrument which bears the words ‘Municipality of Portmore’ will be legally treated as referring to the words ‘Parish of Portmore’ once the Act takes effect.

“So, everything will automatically be understood to have been amended by virtue of this Act and certainly, as administrative processes are undertaken, then the documentation itself will change within Government. But no person bearing title, enactment, instrument, agreement, notice, prospectus or other legal document which refers to the municipality of Portmore will be prejudiced by this change to a parish,” Minister Johnson Smith said.

Other Senators contributing to the debate included Government members Kavan Gayle, Abka Fitz Henley, Marlon Morgan and Delano Seiveright.

Contributors for the Opposition were Professor Floyd Morris, Peter Bunting, Damion Crawford and Lambert Brown.

The legislation was passed in the House of Representatives on February 11, 2025.