By Lavern Clarke, Staff Reporter
Clarke
A RECENT amendment to the Food Processing Act eliminated only one step in the bureaucracy, but on Wednesday manufacturers were quoting a $460 million saving as a result, giving stronger credence to long held positions that Jamaica's red tape strangles efficiency and dampens competitiveness.
The amendment which was officially announced over a week ago, exempts those companies with in-house quality or food safety management systems from mandatory batch by batch testing of their food samples by the local standards agency.
"Our major concern with the previous system was the increased production cost associated with sending samples of every production batch to the Jamaica Bureau of Standards," Jamaica Manufacturers' Association (JMA) president Clarence Clarke told the association's board Wednesday.
Quoting what he said was the state-run Bureau's own estimates, the elimination of the batch testings, said Clarke, will bring annual savings of $40 million to the food processing sector; and another $20 million for doing away with the need for approval and export certificates.
But the major winner is expected to be the ackee exporters who the Jamaica Bureau of Standards (JBS) estimates will pocket an additional $400 million from the erasure of the bottlenecks that came with the testings.
"Ultimately, the amendment will result in a win-win position for the economy, as the Government will need less resource to monitor this system and producers will save money because of the elimination of one extra step," said Clarke.
Bureaucratic red tape and its cost to doing business locally has almost become a staple in business discussions within the trade associations, with the JMA president noting that it has become accepted as a part of doing business.
The producers are pinning hope on the new administration paying increased attention to the needs of industry, with one director, Hendersen Davis noting that not since the 1950s as the sector done so poorly.
And he warns, rising interest rates now at 19.75 per cent are about to wreak havoc on producers again.
Clarke had earlier remarked that "uncompetitive interest rates" was also ranked high among a litany of factors stymieing the productive sector.
"What does it mean for the industry," Davis asked in support of Clarke's statement. "Must we take our money and buy bonds."
Manufacturing remains among the top employers, despite having haemorrhaged tens of thousands of jobs over the past decade. The latest STATIN labour force figures to April 2001, indicate that the sector employed 86,300, coming from over 120,000 ten years ago. The figures are quoted by quarters.
"We anxiously await the naming of the minister who will be given portfolio responsibility for industry and commerce," said Clarke, "as there are several issues that need to be dealt with urgently so that the productive sector can be that vehicle of job creation."
The food processors victory came years after lobbying for the change, with Clarke urging the Jamaican producers to keep up the pressure on policy makers so that reforms are implemented more speedily.
