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MANY GRAINS OF SALT: WHEN JAMAICA IS PROMISED SINGAPORE, MEASURE FIRST
By Dennis A. Minott, PhD
September 25, 2026
As a Christian from Olivet Gospel Hall, I was taught something rather inconvenient for politicians, preachers, professors and newspaper columnists alike: “Test all things.” (“Prove all things; hold fast that which is good” — 1 Thessalonians 5:21; “Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God” — 1 John 4:1; “The simple believeth every word: and “that ye may approve things that are excellent” — Philippians 1:10.)
Those injunctions have become more important to me with age. I no longer regard scepticism as discourtesy. When people exercising great power make grand claims about energy, prosperity, security, national transformation or technology, the citizen has not merely a right but a responsibility to ask: Where is the evidence?
That principle should apply irrespective of party.
So when Prime Minister Andrew Holness told the Caribbean Infrastructure Forum in Miami on September 15 that “Jamaica will become the Singapore of the Caribbean”, I reached instinctively for several grains of salt. The remark was not hearsay. It came at CARIF 2026, before an international investment audience.
Singapore?
That is an assertion capable of measurement.
Providentially, Oxford Economics released its 2026 Global Cities Index at virtually the same moment. It evaluates 1,000 cities across five substantial dimensions: Economics, Human Capital, Quality of Life, Environment and Governance. These are not decorative indicators. Oxford describes them respectively in terms of economic strength; talent and labour-force capacity; wellbeing and liveability; environmental sustainability; and institutional effectiveness.
Singapore ranks 29th among 1,000 cities in 2026. More strikingly, it stands third globally for Quality of Life, supported by high life expectancy, low crime and a housing system in which large-scale state provision and subsidies have helped sustain home ownership and relative affordability.
Kingston's latest fully published Oxford ranking that I can independently verify is from 2025: 681st overall.
Its component rankings were Economics 482nd, Human Capital 750th, Quality of Life 952nd, Environment 369th and Governance 347th.
Pause there.
Nine hundred and fifty-second for Quality of Life.
Singapore was already fourth in that category in Oxford's 2025 index and has advanced to third in 2026. Kingston's verified 2025 position was 952nd.
These are adjacent years, so they must not be falsely presented as an identical-year comparison. But they are sufficiently recent to demonstrate the scale of the developmental distance.
City | Recent Oxford position | Why it matters |
New York | 1st, 2026 | Global economic and human-capital giant |
London | 2nd | Finance, universities, institutions, connectivity |
San Francisco | 5th | Innovation and high-value knowledge economy |
Oslo | 11th | Strong governance and quality of life |
Copenhagen | 18th | Environment, infrastructure and governance |
Berlin | 22nd | Major European knowledge and cultural centre |
Singapore | 29th | Exceptional quality of life, infrastructure and state capacity |
Kingston | 681st, 2025* | Major deficits remain across several dimensions |
*Kingston figure is the latest full Oxford ranking I can independently verify; Singapore and the first six cities are from the 2026 edition.
I have personally encountered cities across an enormous geographic range: Kingston, Port of Spain, Bridgetown, Georgetown, Paramaribo, Mexico City, Guadalajara, Puebla, Miami, Honolulu, San Francisco, New York, London, Nottingham, Copenhagen, Berlin, Bonn, Vienna, Oslo, Rome, Beijing, Shanghai, Manila, Hong Kong, Addis Ababa, Nairobi, Castries and Roseau, among others.
I have not personally set foot in Singapore, and I make no pretence otherwise.
My knowledge of that city-state comes instead from long observation, from friends and A-QuEST members who have studied or lived there, and from decades of watching the extraordinary national experiment associated with Lee Kuan Yew.
That actually makes Oxford's measurements more valuable. This is not tourism-by-anecdote. It is comparison by evidence.
Nor does one need Oxford to discover an uncomfortable contradiction inside Mr Holness's own Miami presentation.
In the same speech in which Jamaica was projected towards Singapore, the Prime Minister acknowledged that Jamaica has “one of the highest energy costs in the region” and a housing deficit of about 150,000 solutions. He invited investors into water, energy, housing, health, education, ports and transportation because substantial infrastructure needs remain.
Those admissions deserve attention. Singapore did not become Singapore through slogan-making. Its development involved decades of disciplined investment in housing, education, water, transport, sanitation, industrial policy, public administration and human capital.
Aspiration is permissible. Aspiration without measurable milestones is advertising.
That is why I have become similarly cautious when hearing governmental enthusiasm for small modular nuclear reactors.
In June, the Prime Minister said Jamaica should prepare to deploy nuclear technology within roughly a decade and described nuclear technology as a “de facto clean energy resource”.
Yet Jamaican public discussion has still not been supplied with anything resembling the engineering dossier that ought to precede such enthusiasm: complete lifecycle cost comparisons; financing assumptions; grid-stability studies; radioactive-waste arrangements; emergency-planning requirements; cooling-water analysis; decommissioning provision; insurance; earthquake risk; or a convincing comparison against combinations of solar, wind, storage, hydro, biomass and modern grid management.
The Gleaner editorial board has itself complained that, years after the SMR idea entered public discussion, the promised robust conversation on economics and safety remained outstanding.
That does not establish that nuclear energy is impossible. It establishes something more modest and intellectually important: the announcement is not the analysis.
Likewise, Jamaica has been spoken of as a coming manufacturing and industrial powerhouse while the Government simultaneously acknowledges electricity costs serious enough to inhibit precisely that transformation. In 2025, the Prime Minister explicitly connected reducing electricity prices with his stated ambition of making Jamaica a regional manufacturing and industrial centre.
Again: ambition is not achievement.
This distinction matters overwhelmingly in democratic life. A road opening is an event. “Transformation” is an interpretation. A memorandum of understanding concerning nuclear technology is a document. It is not a reactor. An investment conference is useful. It does not make Kingston Singapore.
And declining public credulity should not automatically be blamed upon the public.
Jamaicans should feel no guilt whatsoever about asking for tables, dates, engineering studies, audited outcomes and international comparisons before accepting spectacular declarations from any administration. Indeed, governments should welcome such scrutiny. A claim that survives hostile examination emerges stronger.
My Christian instinct to “test all things”, therefore survives intact.
When the Prime Minister says Jamaica can become Singapore, I shall test it.
When nuclear energy is offered as an answer, I shall test it.
When Jamaica is called an emerging industrial powerhouse, I shall test it.
When improvements in infrastructure, security, education, health, water or prosperity are proclaimed, Jamaicans should test those too—recognising genuine progress where the numbers demonstrate it and withholding applause where evidence does not yet support the superlatives.
This is not cynicism for cynicism's sake.
It is citizenship.
Singapore itself should teach us that serious national development rests upon measurement, competence, institutions, continuity and execution.
So by all means let Jamaica aspire to Singapore.
But first give us the milestones.
Give us Kingston at 500.
Then 400.
Then 300.
Show us improvement in human capital, housing, electricity costs, transport, water, productivity, governance and quality of life.
And when those independent measurements begin moving dramatically in the right direction, nobody will need to tell Jamaicans that we are becoming Singapore.
We shall be able to measure it for ourselves.
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