Paulwell
McPherse Thompson and Phyllis Thomas, Staff Reporters
MINISTER of Industry, Commerce and Technology, Phillip Paulwell, will take the hot seat come Tuesday in Parliament.
Prime Minister P. J. Patterson summoned him to Jamaica House in a special meeting yesterday and instructed that he explains to the Jamaican public the controversial Netserv dealings.
The Prime Minister also told Mr. Paulwell to prepare to answer questions on matters relating to the information technology sector. His instructions were given at a meeting also attended by former Minis-ter of State in the Ministry, Colin Campbell, representatives from the National Invest-ment Bank of Jamaica (NIBJ), JAMPRO and the HEART Trust/NTA.
"We are accountable to the people of Jamaica through Parliament and have an obligation to provide full and honest answers in this matter," the Prime Minister said.
The Sunday Gleaner un-derstands that all the companies that have benefited from the Govern-ment's multi-million dollar Information Technology (In-tech) Fund are to be audited.
Following closely on the heels of the controversy surrounding the collapse of Netserv Global Communications Limited, which has been placed in receivership, is the revelation that many more offshore companies in the sector which benefited from the fund were also behind in their projections for job creation.
The six companies so far that have received funding under the Government's programme are Teleservices Jamaica, based in Montego Bay, St. James, and Portmore, St. Catherine; the New Kingston-based Netserv; Bay Telemarketing, based in Montego Bay; Caytech Call Centre of Buff Bay, Portland; Jamaica Call Centre in Kingston and Montego Bay, and Pathway Technologies in Kingston.
Bay Telemarketing is an established business, but has received Government funding to expand its operation.
Paulwell told The Sunday Gleaner yesterday that his call for the Auditor-General's immediate inspection of the Intech Fund "means that everybody who has benefited from the fund must be investigated".
Mr. Paulwell, facing mounting criticisms and calls for his resignation over the Govern-ment's dealings in Netserv, declined to respond to calls for his resignation. He said, however, that for future handling of Government's business, "there has to be greater care to ensure that Government's interest is safeguarded".
The NIBJ, which is responsible for disbursing the Intech Fund to companies benefiting under the programme, placed Netserv in receivership last week on the ground that its operations were no longer viable.
Netserv began operations in June, this year, after being granted a $180 million loan from the Government with the understanding that it would create 3,000 jobs in the first year and 10,000 within three years. However, it failed to meet the target, employing just 209 persons when it was placed in receivership.
But Netserv is not the only one that has failed to meet its target. Jamaica's investment and export promotions agency, JAMPRO, admitted on Friday that most of the offshore companies being funded out of the Intech Fund, were behind in their own projections for job creation.
Manager in charge of information technology at JAMPRO, Julian Robinson, said that of the 40,000 jobs expected to be available in the industry, about 6,000 have so far been created.
Plans for the creation of the 40,000 jobs over a period of three years, were announced by Mr. Paulwell, in 1999.
Mr. Robinson said, however, that because most of the information technology companies were just in the first six to 12 months of their operations and were experiencing "teething" problems, most of them were behind target.
However, he was unable to say how much money has already been allocated to those companies and whether they were expected to receive further funding from the Government. He said JAMPRO was responsible for facilitating the investors and helping them get established.
