THE AMERICAN Chamber of Commerce of Jamaica (AMCHAM) says it has collected more than half the US$70,000 it needs to fund the visit of a United States police research team to Jamaica to assist in the fight against crime.
Becky Stockhausen, AMCHAM's executive director, in appealing to members of the business community to assist the effort, said the research to be conducted by the team from the Washington D.C.-based Police Executive Research Forum would be different because AMCHAM would be setting up a committee to ensure implementation of whatever recommendations were made.
Funds collected so far are being administered by AMCHAM's Economic Development Foundation comprising heads of various local companies including Peter Moses, president of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica.
Mrs. Stockhausen was speaking yesterday at a meeting of AMCHAM at Le Meridien Jamaica Pegasus Hotel, New Kingston. The research team is expected to arrive in Jamaica by early October.
Speaking at the same function, Dr. Omar Davies, Finance and Planning Minister, said he was "very heartened by the extent to which AMCHAM has given the social equation so much attention in recent times".
He said that while addressing crime must be the responsibility of a government, the context in which such behaviour developed was a problem which belonged to everyone.
