Building a Better Jamaica

Published: Wednesday | March 17, 2010
Jamaica Gleaner Arthur Hall, Senior Staff Reporter

The Government has tacked on $31.5 billion to its Budget for this fiscal year which ends in two weeks.

With nine days to go before he presents the 2010-2011 Budget, Finance Minister Audley Shaw yesterday went to Parliament with a second Supplementary Estimates showing plans to spend $593 billion for the fiscal year.

This is up from the $561 billion presented in the first supplementary estimates tabled in Parliament in September, and $38 billion more than...

Published: Wednesday | March 17, 2010
Jamaica Gleaner

With garbage piling up in several communities across the island, the Government has allocated an additional $200 million to dispose of the waste.

This should come as good news to Joan Gordon-Webley, executive director of the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA), who on Monday told The Gleaner that a shortage of money was crippling the agency.

According to Gordon-Webley, the NSWMA had not received subventions from the finance ministry for five fortnights, and was owed millions...

Published: Wednesday | March 17, 2010
Jamaica Gleaner Hugh Wilson, Contributor columns@gleanerjm.com.

THE GOVERNMENT of Jamaica has put to rest speculations as to whether it would accede to the United States' request for the extradition of Christopher Coke.

Prime Minister Bruce Golding identified two reasons for this decision. First, there is an in-sufficiency of credible evidence to substantiate a criminal charge against Christopher Coke. Second, the other available evidence was obtained in breach of the...

Published: Wednesday | March 17, 2010
Jamaica Gleaner

The Government has increased its financial allocation to regional health authorities, which have been struggling to survive under the pressure of free health care.

The health ministry and the Bellevue Hospital have also had their budgets topped up.

Details provided in the second estimates of expenditure tabled in Parliament yesterday show $87 million more allocated to the South East Regional Health Authority, while the Western Regional Health Authority gets $42 million more.

An...

Published: Wednesday | March 17, 2010
Jamaica Gleaner

MAY PEN, Clarendon

Under the direction of the Office of The Prime Minister's (OPM) Department of Local Government, the Clarendon leg of the series of parish-visioning symposiums was held recently at the Versalles Hotel, May Pen, Clarendon.

With 50 agencies from various sectors in the parish participating, the symposium was held under the theme, 'Creating the Parish Vision, Community By Community, My Community, Our Parish, One Jamaica - My Vision'.

State Minister responsible for Local...

Published: Wednesday | March 17, 2010
Jamaica Gleaner Daraine Luton, Senior Staff Reporter daraine.luton@gleanerjm.com

THE GOVERNMENT is shortly to undertake a national youth survey as part of a move to design a new national youth policy.

Senator Warren Newby, parliamentary secretary in the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports, told The Gleaner the aim of the study was to better inform the national policy on youth.

"We have not had sufficient scientific analysis of youths and their...

BY LYNFORD SIMPSON Observer writer editorial@jamaicaobserver.com
Wednesday, March 17, 2010

THE Opposition walked out of yesterday's sitting of the House of Representatives after the Government dismissed claims that it had engaged the services of a United States-based law firm to, among other things, advise the administration on pending extradition requests.

The Opposition was also upset over the alleged "partisan behaviour" of House Speaker Delroy Chuck and also what it claimed was the...

Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Jamaica Observer

MANDEVILLE, Manchester -- Minister of Finance and the Public Service Audley Shaw has described the use of information technology in schools as essential to improving Jamaica's current productivity-per-person rate which he says is declining every year.

"One of the problems we are having here in Jamaica today is low productivity. Collectively, when you measure our productivity-per-capita, our productivity levels for the last 15 years have been declining every year," Shaw said at a graduation exercise...

BY ALICIA DUNKLEY Observer staff reporter dunkleya@jamaicaobserver.com
Wednesday, March 17, 2010

GOVERNMENT'S expenditure for the 2009/2010 fiscal year, which draws to a close in just 15 days, has overshot the original $556.7-billion to just over $593.1 billion -- a staggering $31.5 billion increase.

The revised spending estimates, which were tabled in the House of Representatives yesterday, will be placed before Parliament's Standing Finance Committee, which comprises all 60 members of the lower...

Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Jamaica Observer

THE old courthouse in Spanish Town, St Catherine, will be refurbished and transformed into a thriving civic centre for residents of the community, Minister of Youth, Sports and Culture Olivia Grange has announced.

Grange said the hope is to convert the old site into a place of positive energy and reinforcement for the youths of the town.

"A facility that at one time represented negative things, where people were locked up for breaking the law, this will now become a positive facility, a rebirth;...

CMC Jamaica Observer
Wednesday, March 17, 2010

WASHINGTON, USA (CMC) -- Caribbean countries are to benefit from a financial grant approved by the Multilateral Investment Fund (FOMIN) to finance new sustainable tourism projects in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The FOMIN, an autonomous fund of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) that supports projects for small and microenterprises, will offer grants to finance the creation of small tourism business networks, train entrepreneurs in the region to offer high-quality services and market their...

Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Jamaica Observer

AGRICULTURE and Fisheries Minister Dr Christopher Tufton (right) viewing some of the produce on display at the Montpelier Agricultural and Industrial Show, in St James, in 2009. The show, which is staged on Easter Monday each year, will be held on April 5.

President of the Jamaica Agricultural Society Glendon Harris says this year's event should be the biggest and best ever staged, as it has now become a household name in western Jamaica. He says that patrons should expect a show with a family atmosphere,...

BY LUKE DOUGLAS Business writer
Wednesday, March 17, 2010

GOVERNMENT is seeking to establish a partnership with China that will see Jamaica becoming an assembler of Chinese products destined for the Caribbean and Europe, according to Minister of Industry and Commerce Karl Samuda.

The minister said he discussed the idea with his counterparts in China during a recent trip there. He said he was very impressed by the progress China had made since his visit in the 1980s when he was a junior minister in the Jamaican government.

"What I sought...

BY CAMILO THAME Business Co-ordinator thamec@jamaicaobserver.com
Wednesday, March 17, 2010

GOVERNMENT will have to outperform by nearly $4 billion the original revenue target for the last two months of the current fiscal year if it hopes to pass the International Monetary Fund's (IMF's) grading this May.

At stake is a US$100-million disbursement from the IMF, which it will not give to the Government should Jamaica not meet performance targets for March 31, but even then the implications for market...

BY JULIAN RICHARDSON Assistant business co-ordinator richardsonj@jamaicaobserver.com
Tuesday, March 16, 2010

STATE Minister in the Ministry of Finance Senator Arthur Williams yesterday attempted to quell fears that there will be massive job cuts in the public sector come April 1, the beginning of the new fiscal year.

According to Williams, rumours of job cuts originated from "loose talk" after the Ministry of Finance sent out two circulars -- one asking for the number of temporary...

BY PATRICK FOSTER Observer writer fosterp@jamaicaobserver.com
Tuesday, March 16, 2010

WHILE Government is hell-bent on giving up ownership of Caymanas Park, the island's only horserace track is currently in no position now to attract investors and will have to undergo expensive upgrades to make it viable.

"If we had put up Caymanas Park for divestment in the state it was a year ago we would be at the mercy of investors," Senator Arthur Williams, state minister in the finance ministry, told...

BY INGRID BROWN Observer senior reporter browni@jamaicaobserver.com
Tuesday, March 16, 2010

ONLY $2 billion has been allocated in the Government's coffers this year to pay a portion of the $13.4-billion currently owed to public sector workers, some of whom have been very vocal in their demand for what is owed to them.

And the Government is insisting that there is no other option but to pay the remaining $11.4 billion over the next three years as is stipulated under the recently signed International...

BY MARK CUMMINGS Observer senior reporter cummingsm@jamaicaobserver.com
Tuesday, March 16, 2010

LUCEA, Hanover-- Water and Housing Minister Dr Horace Chang says the Housing Agency of Jamaica (HAJ) has entered into discussions with several landowners in Hanover, in an effort to address the chronic housing shortage in the parish.

"We are badly in need of housing in Hanover, so were are presently having discussions with the owners of lands at Cousins Cove and Winchester so that we can provide more...