- Carlington Wilmot/Freelance Photographer
Lloyd Heath and his wife, Patricia, flip through the scores of applications they received from persons seeking to work with their company which, they say, is going under.
Leonardo Blair, Staff Reporter
THE FACTORY is empty. The fans are dusty and all signs of production have come almost to a standstill. All that is left for manufacturers Lloyd and Patricia Heath to do now is close their doors, send home their two remaining workers and return to England with empty pockets.
"What you see here is all out of my pocket. It might not look like much but it has been a struggle. The roof still leaks in places but I can't do it anymore. I have been ground to a halt," said Mr. Heath on a tour of his almost empty garment operation.
Around the complex are thousands of U.S. dollars worth of sewing machines and textile products including uniforms which they say they haven't been able to sell because of increased competition from cheaper foreign imports.
In a desperate bid to help save their jobs, some of the recently laid off workers attempted to hawk khaki uniforms on the streets for their employers but not even that worked. The imports were giving them a beating. Giving away the goods would mean giving up their business and they still aren't ready to do that just yet.
However, for two years since they transferred their 15-year-old garment operations from Clarendon to factory space at the old Cotton Polyester Mill in Old Harbour they have tried unsuccessfully to get a $3 million loan to pump some life into their efforts.
TURNED DOWN
Nobody, they said, wants to touch the garment industry and it has been very difficult trying to fund the operations from out of pocket expenses year after year. All the financial institutions, (Government and private) to which they applied have turned them down, the Heaths said.
The most difficult rejection came from the National Develoment Foundation of Jamaica (NDFJ) which turned down their application for the loan after more than a year of deliberations and spending nearly $100,000 of their funds to support the application. To add insult to injury, say the couple, the Foundation had decided to change the interest rate that they had agreed on for the loan application from 9 per cent to 13 per cent without telling them until the final moment.
So with very little money left, they were forced to send home the bulk of their 17-member workforce two weeks ago.
Now on the verge of throwing in the towel on their hopes of bringing their operations to its full 230-employment capacity, they are appealing to local companies to start supporting the local garment industry.
Many of the people here, especially the women, are still suffering the effects of the closure of the Cotton Polyester Mill which was being operated jointly by the Chinese and Jamaican governments several years ago.
When the Heaths decided to start garment production at the Mill complex a lot of the former workers came back, armed with years of experience.
"Just before the local government elections, we had applications coming in droves. We even had the Councillors sending people to us. A lot of women have turned up here seeking jobs since we opened up. You would be suprised how many people want to work, no matter how much you paying them. And they are willing to travel far for their jobs too," say Mrs. Heath.
It was not until last week when they saw The Sunday Gleaner's report on local companies contracting their uniforms overseas that they felt there might be some hope for them yet.
"If even two of those companies give us contracts, we would be okay," says Mrs. Heath. "And the Government institutions need to take the lead and do something to help us."
Responding to the recent news reports of Jamaican companies including Government agencies out-sourcing worker uniforms overseas, Mr. Heath said: "There are a lot of skilled workers out there with experience from the Freezone. So I don't buy the argument that we can't deliver quality."
