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NEWS IN BRIEF
FOR GENERAL DISTRIBUTION
Top News in the Print Media: The JIS, The Gleaner & The Observer
From the Overseas Department, Jamaica Information Service
Wednesday September 10, 2003
GREATER FOCUS ON TOURISM
The Gleaner: The two-day Cabinet retreat ended last night with an overview of the country's ailing sugar industry and important decisions relating to the implementation of the long overdue Tourism Action Plan.
A statement from the Office of the Prime Minister last night said Cabinet also received a progress report on plans for the Kingston Business Improvement District.
Cabinet also approved the process for the awarding of contracts for the construction of 5,000 new houses as part of the urban housing programme, expected to begin next month, said Huntley Medley, the Prime Minister's Press Secretary.
SPOT MARKET WEIGHTED AVERAGE RATE
CURRENCY___PURCHASES_____SALES
__US$_______59.1784_____59.4773
__CAN$______42.6032_____43.1588
__GB£_______92.0410_____93.7716
JA TO ADDRESS CONFINTEA V
The Observer: Jamaica will share its plans to meet adult learning targets and curb illiteracy, now running at 21 per cent, at a four-day review meeting of top international officials, which began on Monday in Bangkok, Thailand.
The island's participant in the CONFINTEA V Mid-term Review Conference, Gloria Salmon, the just retired executive director of the Jamaica Library Service and current chairman of the Jamaican Council for Adult Education Adult Learners Week, left the island on the weekend for Bangkok.
The council advises the government on matters relating to adult education and acts as a clearing house for information on adult education, as well as a focal point for international activities impacting that area.
Salmon will share with the meeting, hosted by the UNESCO Institute of Education, Jamaica's commitment to the drive for increased adult learning, including the planned introduction of a High School Equivalency Programme (HISEP) this year.
FRAUD SQUAD PROBES INT’L SCAM
The Gleaner: Local Fraud Squad detectives are probing an international scam in which several Americans, mostly elderly citizens, have been fleeced of thousands of dollars by persons in Jamaica.
This, after the United States citizens are informed that they have won the lottery in Jamaica and are told to send a sum of money to facilitate the processing and transfer of winnings to them.
A spokesperson at the Jamaican Embassy in Washington D.C. told The Gleaner yesterday that persons living in Jamaica have mysteriously got hold of scores of United States citizens' credit cards, telephone numbers and home addresses.
JAS & JMA ALLIANCE
The Gleaner: The Jamaica Manufacturers' Association and the Jamaica Agricultural Society are to sign a formal alliance on October 1, under a push to have locals buy and consume Jamaican products.
Senator Norman Grant, president of the Jamaica Agricultural Society (JAS), said the two bodies needed to work with each other to secure their common interests. He was speaking at a board of directors meeting of the Jamaica Manufacturers' Association at the JMA headquarters, downtown Kingston, yesterday.
"We will see where we can collaborate in dealing with the challenges that we have," Senator Grant said. "This is to ensure that the required financial and legislative support be given to quickly reposition this economy to start creating jobs."
UPHILL BATTLE
The Observer: With Jamaica currently importing more than US$430 million worth of goods from its Caricom partners, while earning less than $50 million from exports to them, it hardly seems likely that such a huge trade imbalance can ever be reversed.
But state minister for foreign affairs, Delano Franklyn is convinced that at the very minimum, there needs to be a "fresh" look at the island's manufacturing sector, if any substantial progress is to be made in creating a more balanced trade.
"A fresh new look by all those involved in the sector, including the government, must be taken to halt the slippage," Franklyn told businessmen from Jamaica as well as Trinidad and Tobago at Monday's opening ceremony of the trade and investment mission being mounted by the twin-island republic in Jamaica.
The mission in which some 20 Trinidadian firms -- mainly manufacturers -- are showcasing their products and services at the Hilton Kingston Hotel runs until Friday.
JPSCo TO BUILD ANOTHER PLANT
The Observer: The Jamaica Public Service Company (JPSCo) is preparing to spend an estimated US$100 million/J$6 billion to build a new power plant before 2006 in order to keep pace with the economy's growing demand for power.
The Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR), which regulates JPSCo, says it expects to receive JPSCo's final expansion plan by month-end. The plan is expected to include liquefied natural gas (LNG) as one of four fuel options.
BNS IS BANK OF THE YEAR
The Gleaner: The Bank of Nova Scotia Jamaica Limited has been named Bank of the Year in Jamaica by The Banker magazine, the industry publication of the Financial Times of London.
Last year, Scotiabank was also named "Best Bank in the Caribbean" by LatinFinance magazine. "The Bank of Nova Scotia Jamaica is an excellent example of Scotiabank Group's ability to leverage its global reach while adapting to best meet the needs of each local market where we operate," said Rick Waugh, Scotiabank President, in a bank release announcing the award.
JIS NEWS
Wednesday September 10, 2003
NATURAL GAS PROJECT ON TARGET
The Government’s project to introduce natural gas to the local energy mix is on target, with a 2006/07date set for implementation.
Ambassador Anthony Hylton, Special Envoy in the Office of the Prime Minister, said that by month-end, a decision should be reached as to the financial and investment advisors for the project. He noted that already, proposals have been received from three of the world’s leading financial advisors in the Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) business.
Ambassador Hylton, who was giving an update on the project at the Management Institute for National Development’s (MIND) Friday Policy Forum recently, informed that a number of measures have already been put in place to facilitate the introduction of the project, including the recent launch of the National Energy Diversification Strategy (NEDS) and the receipt of a US$750,000 grant from the Japanese Trust Fund, managed by the Inter-American Development Bank, to conduct a feasibility study.
EDUCATION STAKEHOLDERS URGED TO UNITE
Minister of Education, Youth and Culture, Maxine Henry Wilson, has urged stakeholders in the education system to unite and work for the upliftment of the nation’s children.
She emphasized that the provision of education ought to be a partnership, whereby all educators, parents, students and the wider community work together towards one end.
Mrs. Henry-Wilson was speaking on September 8, at the official launch of the 2003/04 new school year, at the St. Ann’s Bay Infant School in St. Ann.
NCSC PLANS WEEK OF ACTIVITIES
The St. Ann and Trelawny branches of the National Council for Senior Citizens (NCSC) have planned a number of activities to mark Senior Citizens’ Week to be observed from September 20 - 27.
Carmen Wilson, NCSC events organizer, told JIS News that the week of activities, to be celebrated under the theme, ‘Promoting Quality of Life for an Ageing Society’ would kick off with church services in both parishes on September 20 and 21.
Contact: Celia Lindsay
For further information about any of these news items,contact the Overseas Department at
[email protected]
. The Jamaica Information Service web page address is
www.jis.gov.jm
.Telephone: (876) 926-3740-8 / 926-3590-8, Fax: (876) 926-6715
COMMENTARY
Wednesday September 10, 2003
THE OBSERVER
MR PICKERSGILL SHOULD LEAD THE CHARGE
BY the finance ministry's best projection, the Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) will lose just under $1.4 billion this financial year.
In other words, the Jamaican taxpayer will, in some form, have to embrace all, or a goodly portion of this deficit.
The projected loss, though, is a 14 per cent improvement on the $1.62 billion deficit for 2002/2003 -- the expected result for fare increases, staff redundancies and a general reorganisation of the company based on the recommendations of a group of Swedish consultants. But that loss, in whatever currency, is no chump change. In Jamaica it is definitely a lot of money.
It is because of our appreciation of this fact that we, in these columns, last week raised concern over the posturing of the University and Allied Workers Union (UAWU) regarding its demand for retroactive pay on a new wage contract. The union's demand would have not only substantially increase the wage bill for existing employees, but would have embraced another 300 workers whose jobs were made redundant since January.
If the JUTC has to eventually make those extra-payments it will not simple be an exercise of an amorphous government conjuring up the cash to meet the debt. The truth is that the government will have to dip its hand deep in the pockets of taxpayers. That is, ordinary people, workers, will have to pay up -- in GCT and user fees and the other ways in which governments find to siphon money away from populations. Or, the society will have to forego, or accept a lesser service in other areas so that the administration can meet this bill.
But there is another possibility, the company can acquiesce, throw the chequebooks at the union, giving them all that the JUTC is worth. And watch as the JUTC becomes the decayed vestige of its potential. The atrophied carcass of the JUTC will provide the prism of a future that reflects the past -- of the public transport nastiness of not so long ago pitching helter-skelter on a new imprint of the Middle Passage.
Looked at another way, the UAWU's attitude is a cannibalisation of self and self-interest. But all are devoured in the process.
It need not be like this. For the JUTC is an opportunity for a real partnership and for the building of something which can contribute to the creation of the kind of society which we want Jamaica to be. We believe that the ramshackle which previously claimed to be a bus service had more than an indifferent contribution to the deterioration of values and attitudes.
A decent, civilised bus service, decent public transportation in general, is important to the national economy. If people can move efficiently in the community it will have a positive impact on civic life, civility and social intercourse.
But these things won't just happen because we say so in these columns. It will demand leadership at the level of the JUTC management. It has to have leadership at the policy level.
The truth be told, we have heard the broad intellectual and economic argument. But it has lacked passion and the necessary big strategic initiative. It is all too passive.
So Mr Robert Pickersgill, the transport minister, talks politely about dismantling or regulating the illegal operations of subfranchisers. He talks!
He talks about the need for the JUTC to lift its revenue. One of the ways for this to happen is for the JUTC to lift the number of rides per trip. That is, it needs to have more people riding the buses.
And Mr Pickersgill talks.
It would be useful, we think, if there was a strong, aggressive campaign for Jamaicans to ride the buses. Mr Pickersgill should lead the charge by riding the buses to work everyday for the next six months.
Will it happen? No!
Mr Pickersgill will talk.
===========================================
THE GLEANER
SUPPORTING LOCAL INDUSTRY
THE SUNDAY Gleaner's lead story about the loss of lucrative contracts by local uniform manufacturers to foreign suppliers has evoked strong reactions from readers and the business sector.
There is anger at the continuing decline of local industry because of a myriad of problems and bewilderment at what some contend to be the short-sightedness of major firms awarding contracts to overseas companies without sufficient appreciation for the impact on the Jamaican workforce.
After all, the argument goes, when local firms go out of business or are forced to cut their staff complement, there is a domino effect on the rest of the economy - no income will eventually mean no money to buy the foreign goods anyway.
Central to the concept of supporting local industry however must be considerations of the ability of Jamaican garment manufacturers to produce in the volume and of the high quality desired by local firms. The supreme irony is that many of the manufacturers have not been able to procure loans and financing to re-tool and modernise their plants from some of the very financial institutions that have "boxed the bread out of their mouths".
On the other hand, local firms should not be obliged to support Jamaican manufacturers as a matter of course. If the garment manufacturers demonstrate that they are incapable of delivering goods on time and at the required standard, and are not particularly keen on professionalism, then by all means they should be by-passed.
We are concerned however that despite the era of globalisation and the push for more open markets, we in Jamaica seem determined to be more Catholic than the Pope i.e. we have opened our ports to all and sundry but seem not to be benefiting from any reciprocity.
Only last Saturday, we reported that president of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica, Mrs. Beverly Lopez was concerned that Jamaican goods were facing difficulty gaining access to other CARICOM markets despite all the verbal commitment to free trade. She did not seem convinced that plausible reasons had been put forward for the continued blockades and delays Jamaican exporters face when trying to penetrate other markets.
Reacting to the Sunday news story the Jamaica Manufacturers Association has argued that no country in Europe, North America or the Group of 77 pursues a policy of turning its back on its own.
It is a fact that nearly all countries protect their sensitive industries, with the EU subsidising agriculture, and the USA protecting its wheat farmers. In fact, many of them provide heavy subsidies to fledgling industries while prodding them to become more efficient and competitive.
The era of extensive protectionism is long past but even within the context of some of our Caribbean neighbours having access to cheaper fuel and capital than our local producers and manufacturers, a clear Government policy of providing incentives and of encouraging partnerships between public and private sectors must be put on the fast track.
The garment sector might not fall in the category requiring special protection, but some help is required, we believe. Failure to do otherwise is to encourage our own demise.
FOR GENERAL DISTRIBUTION
Top News in the Print Media: The JIS, The Gleaner & The Observer
From the Overseas Department, Jamaica Information Service
Wednesday September 10, 2003
GREATER FOCUS ON TOURISM
The Gleaner: The two-day Cabinet retreat ended last night with an overview of the country's ailing sugar industry and important decisions relating to the implementation of the long overdue Tourism Action Plan.
A statement from the Office of the Prime Minister last night said Cabinet also received a progress report on plans for the Kingston Business Improvement District.
Cabinet also approved the process for the awarding of contracts for the construction of 5,000 new houses as part of the urban housing programme, expected to begin next month, said Huntley Medley, the Prime Minister's Press Secretary.
SPOT MARKET WEIGHTED AVERAGE RATE
CURRENCY___PURCHASES_____SALES
__US$_______59.1784_____59.4773
__CAN$______42.6032_____43.1588
__GB£_______92.0410_____93.7716
JA TO ADDRESS CONFINTEA V
The Observer: Jamaica will share its plans to meet adult learning targets and curb illiteracy, now running at 21 per cent, at a four-day review meeting of top international officials, which began on Monday in Bangkok, Thailand.
The island's participant in the CONFINTEA V Mid-term Review Conference, Gloria Salmon, the just retired executive director of the Jamaica Library Service and current chairman of the Jamaican Council for Adult Education Adult Learners Week, left the island on the weekend for Bangkok.
The council advises the government on matters relating to adult education and acts as a clearing house for information on adult education, as well as a focal point for international activities impacting that area.
Salmon will share with the meeting, hosted by the UNESCO Institute of Education, Jamaica's commitment to the drive for increased adult learning, including the planned introduction of a High School Equivalency Programme (HISEP) this year.
FRAUD SQUAD PROBES INT’L SCAM
The Gleaner: Local Fraud Squad detectives are probing an international scam in which several Americans, mostly elderly citizens, have been fleeced of thousands of dollars by persons in Jamaica.
This, after the United States citizens are informed that they have won the lottery in Jamaica and are told to send a sum of money to facilitate the processing and transfer of winnings to them.
A spokesperson at the Jamaican Embassy in Washington D.C. told The Gleaner yesterday that persons living in Jamaica have mysteriously got hold of scores of United States citizens' credit cards, telephone numbers and home addresses.
JAS & JMA ALLIANCE
The Gleaner: The Jamaica Manufacturers' Association and the Jamaica Agricultural Society are to sign a formal alliance on October 1, under a push to have locals buy and consume Jamaican products.
Senator Norman Grant, president of the Jamaica Agricultural Society (JAS), said the two bodies needed to work with each other to secure their common interests. He was speaking at a board of directors meeting of the Jamaica Manufacturers' Association at the JMA headquarters, downtown Kingston, yesterday.
"We will see where we can collaborate in dealing with the challenges that we have," Senator Grant said. "This is to ensure that the required financial and legislative support be given to quickly reposition this economy to start creating jobs."
UPHILL BATTLE
The Observer: With Jamaica currently importing more than US$430 million worth of goods from its Caricom partners, while earning less than $50 million from exports to them, it hardly seems likely that such a huge trade imbalance can ever be reversed.
But state minister for foreign affairs, Delano Franklyn is convinced that at the very minimum, there needs to be a "fresh" look at the island's manufacturing sector, if any substantial progress is to be made in creating a more balanced trade.
"A fresh new look by all those involved in the sector, including the government, must be taken to halt the slippage," Franklyn told businessmen from Jamaica as well as Trinidad and Tobago at Monday's opening ceremony of the trade and investment mission being mounted by the twin-island republic in Jamaica.
The mission in which some 20 Trinidadian firms -- mainly manufacturers -- are showcasing their products and services at the Hilton Kingston Hotel runs until Friday.
JPSCo TO BUILD ANOTHER PLANT
The Observer: The Jamaica Public Service Company (JPSCo) is preparing to spend an estimated US$100 million/J$6 billion to build a new power plant before 2006 in order to keep pace with the economy's growing demand for power.
The Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR), which regulates JPSCo, says it expects to receive JPSCo's final expansion plan by month-end. The plan is expected to include liquefied natural gas (LNG) as one of four fuel options.
BNS IS BANK OF THE YEAR
The Gleaner: The Bank of Nova Scotia Jamaica Limited has been named Bank of the Year in Jamaica by The Banker magazine, the industry publication of the Financial Times of London.
Last year, Scotiabank was also named "Best Bank in the Caribbean" by LatinFinance magazine. "The Bank of Nova Scotia Jamaica is an excellent example of Scotiabank Group's ability to leverage its global reach while adapting to best meet the needs of each local market where we operate," said Rick Waugh, Scotiabank President, in a bank release announcing the award.
JIS NEWS
Wednesday September 10, 2003
NATURAL GAS PROJECT ON TARGET
The Government’s project to introduce natural gas to the local energy mix is on target, with a 2006/07date set for implementation.
Ambassador Anthony Hylton, Special Envoy in the Office of the Prime Minister, said that by month-end, a decision should be reached as to the financial and investment advisors for the project. He noted that already, proposals have been received from three of the world’s leading financial advisors in the Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) business.
Ambassador Hylton, who was giving an update on the project at the Management Institute for National Development’s (MIND) Friday Policy Forum recently, informed that a number of measures have already been put in place to facilitate the introduction of the project, including the recent launch of the National Energy Diversification Strategy (NEDS) and the receipt of a US$750,000 grant from the Japanese Trust Fund, managed by the Inter-American Development Bank, to conduct a feasibility study.
EDUCATION STAKEHOLDERS URGED TO UNITE
Minister of Education, Youth and Culture, Maxine Henry Wilson, has urged stakeholders in the education system to unite and work for the upliftment of the nation’s children.
She emphasized that the provision of education ought to be a partnership, whereby all educators, parents, students and the wider community work together towards one end.
Mrs. Henry-Wilson was speaking on September 8, at the official launch of the 2003/04 new school year, at the St. Ann’s Bay Infant School in St. Ann.
NCSC PLANS WEEK OF ACTIVITIES
The St. Ann and Trelawny branches of the National Council for Senior Citizens (NCSC) have planned a number of activities to mark Senior Citizens’ Week to be observed from September 20 - 27.
Carmen Wilson, NCSC events organizer, told JIS News that the week of activities, to be celebrated under the theme, ‘Promoting Quality of Life for an Ageing Society’ would kick off with church services in both parishes on September 20 and 21.
Contact: Celia Lindsay
For further information about any of these news items,contact the Overseas Department at
[email protected]
. The Jamaica Information Service web page address is
www.jis.gov.jm
.Telephone: (876) 926-3740-8 / 926-3590-8, Fax: (876) 926-6715
COMMENTARY
Wednesday September 10, 2003
THE OBSERVER
MR PICKERSGILL SHOULD LEAD THE CHARGE
BY the finance ministry's best projection, the Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) will lose just under $1.4 billion this financial year.
In other words, the Jamaican taxpayer will, in some form, have to embrace all, or a goodly portion of this deficit.
The projected loss, though, is a 14 per cent improvement on the $1.62 billion deficit for 2002/2003 -- the expected result for fare increases, staff redundancies and a general reorganisation of the company based on the recommendations of a group of Swedish consultants. But that loss, in whatever currency, is no chump change. In Jamaica it is definitely a lot of money.
It is because of our appreciation of this fact that we, in these columns, last week raised concern over the posturing of the University and Allied Workers Union (UAWU) regarding its demand for retroactive pay on a new wage contract. The union's demand would have not only substantially increase the wage bill for existing employees, but would have embraced another 300 workers whose jobs were made redundant since January.
If the JUTC has to eventually make those extra-payments it will not simple be an exercise of an amorphous government conjuring up the cash to meet the debt. The truth is that the government will have to dip its hand deep in the pockets of taxpayers. That is, ordinary people, workers, will have to pay up -- in GCT and user fees and the other ways in which governments find to siphon money away from populations. Or, the society will have to forego, or accept a lesser service in other areas so that the administration can meet this bill.
But there is another possibility, the company can acquiesce, throw the chequebooks at the union, giving them all that the JUTC is worth. And watch as the JUTC becomes the decayed vestige of its potential. The atrophied carcass of the JUTC will provide the prism of a future that reflects the past -- of the public transport nastiness of not so long ago pitching helter-skelter on a new imprint of the Middle Passage.
Looked at another way, the UAWU's attitude is a cannibalisation of self and self-interest. But all are devoured in the process.
It need not be like this. For the JUTC is an opportunity for a real partnership and for the building of something which can contribute to the creation of the kind of society which we want Jamaica to be. We believe that the ramshackle which previously claimed to be a bus service had more than an indifferent contribution to the deterioration of values and attitudes.
A decent, civilised bus service, decent public transportation in general, is important to the national economy. If people can move efficiently in the community it will have a positive impact on civic life, civility and social intercourse.
But these things won't just happen because we say so in these columns. It will demand leadership at the level of the JUTC management. It has to have leadership at the policy level.
The truth be told, we have heard the broad intellectual and economic argument. But it has lacked passion and the necessary big strategic initiative. It is all too passive.
So Mr Robert Pickersgill, the transport minister, talks politely about dismantling or regulating the illegal operations of subfranchisers. He talks!
He talks about the need for the JUTC to lift its revenue. One of the ways for this to happen is for the JUTC to lift the number of rides per trip. That is, it needs to have more people riding the buses.
And Mr Pickersgill talks.
It would be useful, we think, if there was a strong, aggressive campaign for Jamaicans to ride the buses. Mr Pickersgill should lead the charge by riding the buses to work everyday for the next six months.
Will it happen? No!
Mr Pickersgill will talk.
===========================================
THE GLEANER
SUPPORTING LOCAL INDUSTRY
THE SUNDAY Gleaner's lead story about the loss of lucrative contracts by local uniform manufacturers to foreign suppliers has evoked strong reactions from readers and the business sector.
There is anger at the continuing decline of local industry because of a myriad of problems and bewilderment at what some contend to be the short-sightedness of major firms awarding contracts to overseas companies without sufficient appreciation for the impact on the Jamaican workforce.
After all, the argument goes, when local firms go out of business or are forced to cut their staff complement, there is a domino effect on the rest of the economy - no income will eventually mean no money to buy the foreign goods anyway.
Central to the concept of supporting local industry however must be considerations of the ability of Jamaican garment manufacturers to produce in the volume and of the high quality desired by local firms. The supreme irony is that many of the manufacturers have not been able to procure loans and financing to re-tool and modernise their plants from some of the very financial institutions that have "boxed the bread out of their mouths".
On the other hand, local firms should not be obliged to support Jamaican manufacturers as a matter of course. If the garment manufacturers demonstrate that they are incapable of delivering goods on time and at the required standard, and are not particularly keen on professionalism, then by all means they should be by-passed.
We are concerned however that despite the era of globalisation and the push for more open markets, we in Jamaica seem determined to be more Catholic than the Pope i.e. we have opened our ports to all and sundry but seem not to be benefiting from any reciprocity.
Only last Saturday, we reported that president of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica, Mrs. Beverly Lopez was concerned that Jamaican goods were facing difficulty gaining access to other CARICOM markets despite all the verbal commitment to free trade. She did not seem convinced that plausible reasons had been put forward for the continued blockades and delays Jamaican exporters face when trying to penetrate other markets.
Reacting to the Sunday news story the Jamaica Manufacturers Association has argued that no country in Europe, North America or the Group of 77 pursues a policy of turning its back on its own.
It is a fact that nearly all countries protect their sensitive industries, with the EU subsidising agriculture, and the USA protecting its wheat farmers. In fact, many of them provide heavy subsidies to fledgling industries while prodding them to become more efficient and competitive.
The era of extensive protectionism is long past but even within the context of some of our Caribbean neighbours having access to cheaper fuel and capital than our local producers and manufacturers, a clear Government policy of providing incentives and of encouraging partnerships between public and private sectors must be put on the fast track.
The garment sector might not fall in the category requiring special protection, but some help is required, we believe. Failure to do otherwise is to encourage our own demise.