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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 October 22, 2003
CARICOM NEEDS NEGOTIATING EXPERT
The Gleaner: A prominent Jamaican trade expert is calling for a new treaty provision to facilitate the appointment of a single body to conduct trade negotiations on behalf of all Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries.
Under-Secretary for Trade in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Ambassador Gail Mathurin, believes the Treaty of Chaguaramas, which established CARICOM, should be further revised to entrench such an appointment.
Speaking at the CARICOM 30th Anniversary Conference at the Mona campus of the University of the West Indies here over the weekend, Mathurin argued that the existing regional structures were not adequate to meet the new demands of international trade negotiations.
WACHOVIA UPBEAT ABOUT JA
The Gleaner: Following Bear Stearns' less-than-positive assessment of the Government's fiscal performance, United States finance house Wachovia Securities remains somewhat upbeat on Jamaica but makes the point that the Government still faces considerable challenges.
With expenditure, wages and programme spending on the increase and the interest on debt sucking up the Government's resources, Senior Managing Director of Bear Stearns, Carl Ross commented: "In our view Jamaica is holding on barely to its fiscal situation and debt dynamics.”
SPOT MARKET WEIGHTED AVERAGE RATE
CURRENCY -- PURCHASES -- SALES
___US$_______59.7622_____60.1176
__CAN$_______44.2252_____45.2445
___GB£_______98.1960_____100.2397
J’CAN COMPANIES WIN TOP AWARDS
The Gleaner: Three Jamaican companies won major awards at the 10th staging of the 'Caribbean Gift & Craft Show' (CGCS), held in Grenada recently, which was attended by over 200 regional and international trade buyers.
JAMPRO co-ordinated the participation of 45 local artists, artisans and designers, and from this group, the following companies received recognition for the quality of their products:
* Blue Mountain Aromatics 'Outstanding Product Line (Gift & Craft)'
* Bill Edwards Fashion 'Outstanding Product Line (Fashion)'
* Starfish Oils 'Outstanding Creative Packaging'
Special 10th anniversary awards were presented to founding member of CGCS, Anabella Proud-lock of Harmony Hall, St. Ann and our national carrier Air Jamaica for being a consistent sponsor of the show. Cleopatra's Collection, Harmony Hall, Cotton & Craft and Just Kids also won awards for consistent participation as exhibitors.
AID COMING TO AGRI SECTOR
The Gleaner: The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) has launched a new development programme that will triple financial assistance to Jamaica's agricultural sector.
The upgraded development policy was disclosed by First Secretary in the Canadian High Commission Vivian Monteith while speaking recently at the graduation ceremony for Rural Women in Agriculture held at the Runaway Bay HEART Hotel in St. Ann.
"Through this new policy, CIDA will increase investments in the agricultural sector from a current level of approximately Cdn$95 million Cdn$300 million in the years 2005-2006," said Mr. Monteith. The aim, he said, is Cdn$500 million by 2008.
RESOURCES HINDER AIDS FIGHT
The Observer: Inadequate resources, staffing and medication are some of the challenges being faced by the Caribbean in its fight against HIV/AIDS, according to Karen Turner, USAID mission director.
She was addressing the second annual general meeting of the Caribbean Coalition of National Aids Programme Co-ordinators (CCNAPC) at the Wyndham Rose Hall Hotel in Montego Bay yesterday. The conference is being held under the theme "From Paper to Practice: The Road to Sustainability".
Last week, the United Nations approved a $2.5-billion grant to help a number of Caribbean countries in their fight against AIDS. A little under $1.5 billion of that amount will go to Jamaica.
UHWI GETS CASH INJECTION
The Gleaner: The Jamaica Broilers Group has contributed $3 million toward the construction of two Operating Theatres and an eight-bed Intensive Care Unit at the University Hospital.
In making the announcement today, the President and CEO of Jamaica Broilers, Robert Levy, said the amount would be presented in three tranches, with the final one set for May, 2005.
The project is expected to cost about $86 million and Tankweld Limited has agreed to erect the building at cost.
PM PLEDGES OWN LAND
The Gleaner: Prime Minister P.J. Patterson has announced his intention to donate family property, which he owns in his home community of Dias in Hanover, for the construction of an educational institution for residents of the area.
The Prime Minister has also invited the newly created Hanover Homecoming Foundation to work with him to develop the plans for the educational facility. He was speaking at the foundation's launch in Lucea, Hanover last Thursday.
RESIDENTS GET TRAINING
The Observer: Three hundred and sixty residents from two innercity Kingston communities should have permanent jobs and 15 new businesses should be created by September 2004 if an ongoing training programme is successful.
The programme was spawned through collaboration between the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Kingston Restoration Company's (KRC) Peace and Prosperity Project. Through the project, residents from Grants Pen and Standpipe recently participated in a job fair after completing a three-month training programme.
"This three month-old programme came about after discussions with USAID which sought to stimulate job creation and growth in an attempt to build social order," explained Morin Seymour, KRC executive director, as he addressed the trainees and prospective employers at the job fair.
JIS NEWS
Wednesday October 22, 2003
CONTRACTS SIGNED TO IMPROVE NMIA
The Ministry of Transport and Works yesterday signed three contracts valued at over $393 million to carry out extensive improvements to the physical facilities and operational efficiency of the Norman Manley International Airport.
Minister of Transport and Works, Robert Pickersgill, who signed the contracts at the Ministry’s Pawsey Road offices in New Kingston, explained that the new contracts were a continuation of a series of improvement works being carried out on the airport under a US$60 million Airport Reform and Improvement Programme.
He pointed out that the airport was the “principal gateway to the capital, and is therefore a crucial part of the strategy to stimulate our economic growth and developmentt.”
The Minister informed that in 2002, the estimated passenger throughput at the airport was 1.5 million. He said a three to four per cent increase was expected in 2003, with gradual increases to 1.9 million passengers in 2013 and 2.5 million in the year 2022.
STATE MINISTER LAUDS SERVICE SECTOR
State Minister for Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Delano Franklyn has raised concerns about Jamaica’s inability to match its imports with exports of goods and services. He pointed out that it was the service sector that had made the island’s merchandise trade performance bearable.
“In 2002 our trade deficit was US$2.5 billion, in short, we sold US$1.1 billion in exports and bought US$3.6 billion. What that means is that if the country is left to rely only on trade in goods we would be in dire straits,” he said.
He was addressing the opening ceremony of the Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s 2003 Expo and Trade Fair on Friday (October 17) at the Cruise Ship Terminal, in the Montego Freeport.
INTER ISLAND MIGRATION LOW
Despite the uneven distribution of wealth, not many Jamaicans have left their parish of birth to seek their fortune elsewhere, with statistics over the last
10 years showing a less than 1 per cent increase in the number of persons who have migrated to other parishes.
Census figures show that while 669,100 Jamaicans or 26.3 per cent of the population resided outside their parish of birth in 2001, that percentage represented an increase of only 72,250 persons or 0.9 per cent compared to 1991.
Women comprise 28.2 per cent of the lifetime migrants, compared to 24.3 per cent for men. The higher proportion of females was evident at both census dates. This was the case in every parish. A lifetime migrant is one, who at the time of the enquiry (census or survey) is a local born resident not living in the parish of birth.
TEXTBOOKS DELIVERED EARLY
The Government has reported that for the first time since it started awarding contracts to supply textbooks to primary schools, the books were delivered early.
Responding to questions posed by Opposition Senator, Bruce Golding in the Senate on Friday, October 17, Leader of Government Business, Senator Burchell Whiteman said the majority of the books were delivered before the specified time with the others to be delivered by October 17, this year.
“The time specified in the contract for completion of delivery is October 13, 2003, the contractor had completed delivery of the textbooks to all schools in all parishes with the exception of St. Andrew. In the case of St. Andrew, the schools not yet supplied are in the rural parts of the parish. It is expected that delivery will be completed on Friday, October 17, 2003,” he said.
State Minister in the Ministry of Education, Senator Noel Monteith pointed out that the contractor had completed the production of the books in August and delivered to all schools by September, except for those in rural St. Andrew.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT FORMS ALLIANCES
The Ministry of Local Government, Community Development and Sports is moving to form alliances to adopt local governance practices of developed countries, such as the United States and Canada, in an effort to further enhance the local government reform process.
The alliances are based on the Ministry’s participation in the Second Meeting of Ministers and High-Level Authorities Responsible For Policies on Decentralization, Local Government and Citizen Participation, at the Municipal Level in the Hemisphere, which was hosted last month in Mexico.
Consultant on Local Government Reform, Keith Miller, who was a member of the Jamaican delegation attending the three-day conference in Mexico City, told JIS News that the group made important connections. “We were able to get some information from the Canadian Federation of Municipalities as to how they have developed in terms of the instruments and mechanisms they have used for citizen participation,” he informed.
He said that the Jamaican delegation, which was headed by Minister Portia Simpson-Miller, also met the Association of Cities and Conference of Mayors, the United States body responsible for local governance.
SUPT. AMOS PRAISES INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
Commanding Officer of the St. James Division, Supt. Newton Amos, has praised the National Intelligence Bureau of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) for gleaning valuable information that might have saved the lives of members of the JCF who went on an operation in Canterbury, St. James on Wednesday (October 15).
Commissioner of Police, Francis Forbes quoted Superintendent Amos as saying: “We could have lost several members had it not been for good intelligence and good planning”, while speaking at a press conference on October 15, where he also discussed the Force’s Reform and Modernization Programme.
The National Intelligence Bureau will administer some of the new strategies being employed by the JCF to improve accountability and effectiveness. Other strategies to be implemented include the establishment of a Professional Standards Branch and a Performance Monitoring and Auditing Bureau (PMAB).
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 October 22, 2003
THE OBSERVER
NOT ONLY FOR VON HOFFMAN
THE information minister, Mr Burchell Whiteman, has confirmed that the American firm, Von Hoffman Corporation, has been making a case for an extra payment on the $51.6 million which it contracted to print 2.2 million textbooks for the government of Jamaica.
This project is important to Jamaica and to the country's education system. It is a programme through which the government provides, free of cost, core textbooks to children who attend government-run primary schools.
About 350,000 children in over 700 schools benefit from this programme.
This year, for the first time, the government allowed foreign printers to bid on the project. It opened the tender to overseas printers because, it said, local printers had in the past been late delivering the books, usually after the school year had started.
Von Hoffman is known in the industry as a technically competent and respected printing company in the United States. Von Hoffman's size in the United States and the relative efficiency of the American economy versus Jamaica's as well as its access to technology would, in the normal course of things, provide Von Hoffman with economies of scale and other advantages that would not be enjoyed by Jamaican competitors.
It was hardly surprising that Von Hoffman could underbid a Jamaican firm, even only marginally, for the school book contract.
There are those, however, who were concerned about this contract going abroad. As was argued by several local printers who normally had sub-contracts on the textbook project, they worried about a loss of Jamaican jobs.
And while it might have been argued that under World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules Jamaican firms have to become accustomed to competition from foreign businesses in the domestic markets, there is leverage when it comes to government procurement.
In other words, the government, if it so desired, need not have sent this project offshore. It did so because it believed that it got the best deal -- the textbooks delivered at a good price, at a good quality and in good time.
That is a fact of life that firms, in a competitive global environment, have to live with. As we have been often reminded.
Last month, when local printers questioned the Von Hoffman contract, and wanted to know whether in light of the devaluation of the Jamaican currency and a new import levy introduced by the government Von Hoffman would expect additional payments, this newspaper was told by the contractor general that the contract was at a fixed price. It did not anticipate escalation.
Indeed, Jamaican businesses are daily subjected to devaluation risks and have to plan accordingly. Contracts, once they have been entered into have to be respected and adhered to.
It is a fact of which we are sure Von Hoffman is aware, as are Jamaican managers as well as the Jamaican government. It would send a bad signal, we believe, if the government were to accede to Von Hoffman's request to additional payments to cushion the impact on the Jamaican dollar -- the currency in which it quoted for a job to be done in the United States.
If the government is to reimburse Von Hoffman for its devaluation losses then it may wish to consider providing a cushion for all those Jamaican businesses that were on the currency roller-coaster on which Von Hoffman enjoyed only a short ride.
============================================
THE GLEANER
WANTED: DEPORTEE RESTRICTIONS
YESTERDAY'S FRONT page lead story carried alarming news about the role of deportees in Jamaica's escalating crime crisis. Based on an Associated Press (AP) survey conducted in the United States and the Caribbean, including Jamaica, the statistics show that one out of every 106 Jamaican males over the age of 15 is a criminal deportee sent back from America. Since the over-15 male population of Jamaica is about 856,000, this means that of a total of 17,000 deportees returned to Jamaica in the last seven years, over 50 per cent or about 8,000 are involved in criminal activities.
Local police sources report that deportees in Jamaica have been involved in 600 murders, 1,700 armed robberies and 150 shoot-outs. These deportees, it now appears, are the nucleus of criminal gangs operating in Jamaica, some 30 of them in the Corporate Area and St. Catherine.
This new information casts new light on what steps should be taken to make crime-fighting efforts more effective. The bureaucracy for getting court orders to monitor deportees must be streamlined and new legislation passed if necessary. This is not an issue of a blanket danger to civil liberties as would be involved in a State of Emergency. The deportees are Jamaican citizens this is the basis on which they are flushed out of the American penal system and as such we should be entitled to make rules regarding their freedom of movement, a right which they have forfeited by their criminal behaviour and conviction.
As it now stands, the police are required to produce transcripts of individual cases for the courts to grant permission for surveillance and reporting schedules. We are astonished that, given the scope of the problem, the police in 2001 requested permission to monitor only 27 deportees. This speaks to a lack of focus and urgency on the part of the police force. Since the start of the year, of the requests submitted to the courts, only two have been approved. This speaks to the lack of focus and urgency on the part of the judiciary.
Between the system, the police and the courts, deportees are being allowed to wreak havoc on the society and it is time that citizens demand immediate implementation of whatever changes are necessary to get the situation under control. If the AP statistics are correct, the freedom of movement of some 8,000 dangerous deportees should be restricted by having them regularly report to police stations and a smaller hardcore should be under actual surveillance around the clock.
FOR GENERAL DISTRIBUTION
Top News in the Print Media: The JIS, The Gleaner & The Observer
From the Overseas Department, Jamaica Information Service
Wednesday October 22, 2003
CARICOM NEEDS NEGOTIATING EXPERT
The Gleaner: A prominent Jamaican trade expert is calling for a new treaty provision to facilitate the appointment of a single body to conduct trade negotiations on behalf of all Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries.
Under-Secretary for Trade in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Ambassador Gail Mathurin, believes the Treaty of Chaguaramas, which established CARICOM, should be further revised to entrench such an appointment.
Speaking at the CARICOM 30th Anniversary Conference at the Mona campus of the University of the West Indies here over the weekend, Mathurin argued that the existing regional structures were not adequate to meet the new demands of international trade negotiations.
WACHOVIA UPBEAT ABOUT JA
The Gleaner: Following Bear Stearns' less-than-positive assessment of the Government's fiscal performance, United States finance house Wachovia Securities remains somewhat upbeat on Jamaica but makes the point that the Government still faces considerable challenges.
With expenditure, wages and programme spending on the increase and the interest on debt sucking up the Government's resources, Senior Managing Director of Bear Stearns, Carl Ross commented: "In our view Jamaica is holding on barely to its fiscal situation and debt dynamics.”
SPOT MARKET WEIGHTED AVERAGE RATE
CURRENCY -- PURCHASES -- SALES
___US$_______59.7622_____60.1176
__CAN$_______44.2252_____45.2445
___GB£_______98.1960_____100.2397
J’CAN COMPANIES WIN TOP AWARDS
The Gleaner: Three Jamaican companies won major awards at the 10th staging of the 'Caribbean Gift & Craft Show' (CGCS), held in Grenada recently, which was attended by over 200 regional and international trade buyers.
JAMPRO co-ordinated the participation of 45 local artists, artisans and designers, and from this group, the following companies received recognition for the quality of their products:
* Blue Mountain Aromatics 'Outstanding Product Line (Gift & Craft)'
* Bill Edwards Fashion 'Outstanding Product Line (Fashion)'
* Starfish Oils 'Outstanding Creative Packaging'
Special 10th anniversary awards were presented to founding member of CGCS, Anabella Proud-lock of Harmony Hall, St. Ann and our national carrier Air Jamaica for being a consistent sponsor of the show. Cleopatra's Collection, Harmony Hall, Cotton & Craft and Just Kids also won awards for consistent participation as exhibitors.
AID COMING TO AGRI SECTOR
The Gleaner: The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) has launched a new development programme that will triple financial assistance to Jamaica's agricultural sector.
The upgraded development policy was disclosed by First Secretary in the Canadian High Commission Vivian Monteith while speaking recently at the graduation ceremony for Rural Women in Agriculture held at the Runaway Bay HEART Hotel in St. Ann.
"Through this new policy, CIDA will increase investments in the agricultural sector from a current level of approximately Cdn$95 million Cdn$300 million in the years 2005-2006," said Mr. Monteith. The aim, he said, is Cdn$500 million by 2008.
RESOURCES HINDER AIDS FIGHT
The Observer: Inadequate resources, staffing and medication are some of the challenges being faced by the Caribbean in its fight against HIV/AIDS, according to Karen Turner, USAID mission director.
She was addressing the second annual general meeting of the Caribbean Coalition of National Aids Programme Co-ordinators (CCNAPC) at the Wyndham Rose Hall Hotel in Montego Bay yesterday. The conference is being held under the theme "From Paper to Practice: The Road to Sustainability".
Last week, the United Nations approved a $2.5-billion grant to help a number of Caribbean countries in their fight against AIDS. A little under $1.5 billion of that amount will go to Jamaica.
UHWI GETS CASH INJECTION
The Gleaner: The Jamaica Broilers Group has contributed $3 million toward the construction of two Operating Theatres and an eight-bed Intensive Care Unit at the University Hospital.
In making the announcement today, the President and CEO of Jamaica Broilers, Robert Levy, said the amount would be presented in three tranches, with the final one set for May, 2005.
The project is expected to cost about $86 million and Tankweld Limited has agreed to erect the building at cost.
PM PLEDGES OWN LAND
The Gleaner: Prime Minister P.J. Patterson has announced his intention to donate family property, which he owns in his home community of Dias in Hanover, for the construction of an educational institution for residents of the area.
The Prime Minister has also invited the newly created Hanover Homecoming Foundation to work with him to develop the plans for the educational facility. He was speaking at the foundation's launch in Lucea, Hanover last Thursday.
RESIDENTS GET TRAINING
The Observer: Three hundred and sixty residents from two innercity Kingston communities should have permanent jobs and 15 new businesses should be created by September 2004 if an ongoing training programme is successful.
The programme was spawned through collaboration between the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Kingston Restoration Company's (KRC) Peace and Prosperity Project. Through the project, residents from Grants Pen and Standpipe recently participated in a job fair after completing a three-month training programme.
"This three month-old programme came about after discussions with USAID which sought to stimulate job creation and growth in an attempt to build social order," explained Morin Seymour, KRC executive director, as he addressed the trainees and prospective employers at the job fair.
JIS NEWS
Wednesday October 22, 2003
CONTRACTS SIGNED TO IMPROVE NMIA
The Ministry of Transport and Works yesterday signed three contracts valued at over $393 million to carry out extensive improvements to the physical facilities and operational efficiency of the Norman Manley International Airport.
Minister of Transport and Works, Robert Pickersgill, who signed the contracts at the Ministry’s Pawsey Road offices in New Kingston, explained that the new contracts were a continuation of a series of improvement works being carried out on the airport under a US$60 million Airport Reform and Improvement Programme.
He pointed out that the airport was the “principal gateway to the capital, and is therefore a crucial part of the strategy to stimulate our economic growth and developmentt.”
The Minister informed that in 2002, the estimated passenger throughput at the airport was 1.5 million. He said a three to four per cent increase was expected in 2003, with gradual increases to 1.9 million passengers in 2013 and 2.5 million in the year 2022.
STATE MINISTER LAUDS SERVICE SECTOR
State Minister for Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Delano Franklyn has raised concerns about Jamaica’s inability to match its imports with exports of goods and services. He pointed out that it was the service sector that had made the island’s merchandise trade performance bearable.
“In 2002 our trade deficit was US$2.5 billion, in short, we sold US$1.1 billion in exports and bought US$3.6 billion. What that means is that if the country is left to rely only on trade in goods we would be in dire straits,” he said.
He was addressing the opening ceremony of the Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s 2003 Expo and Trade Fair on Friday (October 17) at the Cruise Ship Terminal, in the Montego Freeport.
INTER ISLAND MIGRATION LOW
Despite the uneven distribution of wealth, not many Jamaicans have left their parish of birth to seek their fortune elsewhere, with statistics over the last
10 years showing a less than 1 per cent increase in the number of persons who have migrated to other parishes.
Census figures show that while 669,100 Jamaicans or 26.3 per cent of the population resided outside their parish of birth in 2001, that percentage represented an increase of only 72,250 persons or 0.9 per cent compared to 1991.
Women comprise 28.2 per cent of the lifetime migrants, compared to 24.3 per cent for men. The higher proportion of females was evident at both census dates. This was the case in every parish. A lifetime migrant is one, who at the time of the enquiry (census or survey) is a local born resident not living in the parish of birth.
TEXTBOOKS DELIVERED EARLY
The Government has reported that for the first time since it started awarding contracts to supply textbooks to primary schools, the books were delivered early.
Responding to questions posed by Opposition Senator, Bruce Golding in the Senate on Friday, October 17, Leader of Government Business, Senator Burchell Whiteman said the majority of the books were delivered before the specified time with the others to be delivered by October 17, this year.
“The time specified in the contract for completion of delivery is October 13, 2003, the contractor had completed delivery of the textbooks to all schools in all parishes with the exception of St. Andrew. In the case of St. Andrew, the schools not yet supplied are in the rural parts of the parish. It is expected that delivery will be completed on Friday, October 17, 2003,” he said.
State Minister in the Ministry of Education, Senator Noel Monteith pointed out that the contractor had completed the production of the books in August and delivered to all schools by September, except for those in rural St. Andrew.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT FORMS ALLIANCES
The Ministry of Local Government, Community Development and Sports is moving to form alliances to adopt local governance practices of developed countries, such as the United States and Canada, in an effort to further enhance the local government reform process.
The alliances are based on the Ministry’s participation in the Second Meeting of Ministers and High-Level Authorities Responsible For Policies on Decentralization, Local Government and Citizen Participation, at the Municipal Level in the Hemisphere, which was hosted last month in Mexico.
Consultant on Local Government Reform, Keith Miller, who was a member of the Jamaican delegation attending the three-day conference in Mexico City, told JIS News that the group made important connections. “We were able to get some information from the Canadian Federation of Municipalities as to how they have developed in terms of the instruments and mechanisms they have used for citizen participation,” he informed.
He said that the Jamaican delegation, which was headed by Minister Portia Simpson-Miller, also met the Association of Cities and Conference of Mayors, the United States body responsible for local governance.
SUPT. AMOS PRAISES INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
Commanding Officer of the St. James Division, Supt. Newton Amos, has praised the National Intelligence Bureau of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) for gleaning valuable information that might have saved the lives of members of the JCF who went on an operation in Canterbury, St. James on Wednesday (October 15).
Commissioner of Police, Francis Forbes quoted Superintendent Amos as saying: “We could have lost several members had it not been for good intelligence and good planning”, while speaking at a press conference on October 15, where he also discussed the Force’s Reform and Modernization Programme.
The National Intelligence Bureau will administer some of the new strategies being employed by the JCF to improve accountability and effectiveness. Other strategies to be implemented include the establishment of a Professional Standards Branch and a Performance Monitoring and Auditing Bureau (PMAB).
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 October 22, 2003
THE OBSERVER
NOT ONLY FOR VON HOFFMAN
THE information minister, Mr Burchell Whiteman, has confirmed that the American firm, Von Hoffman Corporation, has been making a case for an extra payment on the $51.6 million which it contracted to print 2.2 million textbooks for the government of Jamaica.
This project is important to Jamaica and to the country's education system. It is a programme through which the government provides, free of cost, core textbooks to children who attend government-run primary schools.
About 350,000 children in over 700 schools benefit from this programme.
This year, for the first time, the government allowed foreign printers to bid on the project. It opened the tender to overseas printers because, it said, local printers had in the past been late delivering the books, usually after the school year had started.
Von Hoffman is known in the industry as a technically competent and respected printing company in the United States. Von Hoffman's size in the United States and the relative efficiency of the American economy versus Jamaica's as well as its access to technology would, in the normal course of things, provide Von Hoffman with economies of scale and other advantages that would not be enjoyed by Jamaican competitors.
It was hardly surprising that Von Hoffman could underbid a Jamaican firm, even only marginally, for the school book contract.
There are those, however, who were concerned about this contract going abroad. As was argued by several local printers who normally had sub-contracts on the textbook project, they worried about a loss of Jamaican jobs.
And while it might have been argued that under World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules Jamaican firms have to become accustomed to competition from foreign businesses in the domestic markets, there is leverage when it comes to government procurement.
In other words, the government, if it so desired, need not have sent this project offshore. It did so because it believed that it got the best deal -- the textbooks delivered at a good price, at a good quality and in good time.
That is a fact of life that firms, in a competitive global environment, have to live with. As we have been often reminded.
Last month, when local printers questioned the Von Hoffman contract, and wanted to know whether in light of the devaluation of the Jamaican currency and a new import levy introduced by the government Von Hoffman would expect additional payments, this newspaper was told by the contractor general that the contract was at a fixed price. It did not anticipate escalation.
Indeed, Jamaican businesses are daily subjected to devaluation risks and have to plan accordingly. Contracts, once they have been entered into have to be respected and adhered to.
It is a fact of which we are sure Von Hoffman is aware, as are Jamaican managers as well as the Jamaican government. It would send a bad signal, we believe, if the government were to accede to Von Hoffman's request to additional payments to cushion the impact on the Jamaican dollar -- the currency in which it quoted for a job to be done in the United States.
If the government is to reimburse Von Hoffman for its devaluation losses then it may wish to consider providing a cushion for all those Jamaican businesses that were on the currency roller-coaster on which Von Hoffman enjoyed only a short ride.
============================================
THE GLEANER
WANTED: DEPORTEE RESTRICTIONS
YESTERDAY'S FRONT page lead story carried alarming news about the role of deportees in Jamaica's escalating crime crisis. Based on an Associated Press (AP) survey conducted in the United States and the Caribbean, including Jamaica, the statistics show that one out of every 106 Jamaican males over the age of 15 is a criminal deportee sent back from America. Since the over-15 male population of Jamaica is about 856,000, this means that of a total of 17,000 deportees returned to Jamaica in the last seven years, over 50 per cent or about 8,000 are involved in criminal activities.
Local police sources report that deportees in Jamaica have been involved in 600 murders, 1,700 armed robberies and 150 shoot-outs. These deportees, it now appears, are the nucleus of criminal gangs operating in Jamaica, some 30 of them in the Corporate Area and St. Catherine.
This new information casts new light on what steps should be taken to make crime-fighting efforts more effective. The bureaucracy for getting court orders to monitor deportees must be streamlined and new legislation passed if necessary. This is not an issue of a blanket danger to civil liberties as would be involved in a State of Emergency. The deportees are Jamaican citizens this is the basis on which they are flushed out of the American penal system and as such we should be entitled to make rules regarding their freedom of movement, a right which they have forfeited by their criminal behaviour and conviction.
As it now stands, the police are required to produce transcripts of individual cases for the courts to grant permission for surveillance and reporting schedules. We are astonished that, given the scope of the problem, the police in 2001 requested permission to monitor only 27 deportees. This speaks to a lack of focus and urgency on the part of the police force. Since the start of the year, of the requests submitted to the courts, only two have been approved. This speaks to the lack of focus and urgency on the part of the judiciary.
Between the system, the police and the courts, deportees are being allowed to wreak havoc on the society and it is time that citizens demand immediate implementation of whatever changes are necessary to get the situation under control. If the AP statistics are correct, the freedom of movement of some 8,000 dangerous deportees should be restricted by having them regularly report to police stations and a smaller hardcore should be under actual surveillance around the clock.