Francis By McPherse Thompson,
Staff Reporter
JAMAICA'S INVESTMENT and export promotions agency, JAMPRO, will not become an executive agency in name, but will operate along the same guidelines as those government agencies which have been so designated.
That is because Jampro is considered as the link between the public and the private sectors, and the fact that the board, as now constituted, is predominantly made up of members of the private sector, according to the agency's president Patricia Francis.
However, Mrs. Francis said JAMPRO would be subjected to the principles governing executive agencies, which meant they would have to meet certain performance criteria as set by the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Technology to which the body currently reports, as well as providing quarterly reports to the Public Sector Modernisation Programme and Parliament.
Responding to a question after she addressed the monthly meeting of the Jamaica-British Business Association at Le Meridien Jamaica Pegasus Hotel, New Kingston last week, Mrs. Francis said those reports would be made public and if they could not meet the targets set there would be consequences.
"We are not actually be going to become an executive agency," said the JAMPRO president. "We are being modernised, which means we are maintaining our status as a statutory corporation, but all the things which are being imposed on executive agencies are being imposed on us," she said.
Mrs. Francis, who was retained as president of the investment agency after a selection process last year, said the Permanent Secretary was the only member of the board representing the public sector. Explaining the rationale for not converting JAMPRO into an executive agency, Mrs. Francis said: "We felt it was important for us to take much of our policy initiatives and the direction of the organisation from the private sector. So we felt that if we had a lesser role for the board in the organisation, there was the feedback that was coming from our private sector partners that we would lose some of the value of the organisation. So we have a role for the board, a role for the president and a role for the minister, which is going to go in our framework agreement. So our agreement will be slightly different from that of the executive agency because it will actually have a role for the board."
The JAMPRO president also said the agency would be working closer with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a result of a recommendation out of the Orane Report for the integration of such overseas offices as JAMPRO, the Jamaica Tourist Board (JTB) and the Jamaica Information Service (JIS) with that Ministry.
According to Mrs. Francis, a subcommittee of Cabinet has been established to look at implementation of many of the programmes proposed in the Orane Report, conducted by Senator Douglas Orane, chairman and chief executive officer of Grace, Kennedy and Company.
A paper, entitled "Beyond the Orane Report", has been prepared, looking at how best to integrate the overseas representations, said Mrs. Francis, noting that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has also been given a new mandate to shift its primary focus to trade and investment.
It means that JAMPRO may second a member of its staff to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to take up the commercial attache's position within the overseas offices, a position which could also go to a private sector representative for a specified period.
