Desmond Blades (right), Jamaica Conference Board chairman, in discussion with Jamaica Chamber of Commerce president, Michael Ammar Jr., while Barry Bonitto, president of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce looks on. There were attending the JCC annual general meeting at its office in Kingston yesterday. - Rudolph Brown/Staff Photographer IT HAS been some three to four years in the planning, but yesterday Michael Ammar Jr. told the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce membership that the new umbrella organisation for the private sector should emerge next year.
The private sector wants to have a more powerful voice in the affairs of the country, especially on issues impacting business welfare, and sees "a confederation" as the way to accomplish it. Ammar who was returned as JCC president for a second term at the agency's annual general meeting, said concluding the confederation discussions was one of five main objectives he had for his new term.
The process had been slowed due to a change of consultants, he said. Now, he says, only "the nuts and bolts issues" are left to deal with. The name proposed and in use for the umbrella association is the 'Private Sector Organisations of Jamaica', and according to Beverley Lopez, president of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica. The umbrella PSOJ will be a chamber, as well as accommodating the exporters, bankers and securities dealers associations already inhouse. A memorandum of understanding has already been signed with only the chamber left to join the others at Hope Road. For now the arrangement is limited to the MOU signatories entities named, but others expressing interest will be invited to join once the umbrella agency becomes operational.
Lopez's PSOJ is now looking at expanding its building at Hope Road to accommodate the JCC's integration.
"Serious effort" at building a confederation was led, said Ammar, by past PSOJ president Peter Moses. The PSOJ, over the years, has emerged as the dominant business voice, largely by virtue of the major players it represents.
As Ammar puts it, the new arrangement will "do away" with the PSOJ as people now know it, as it too will fall under the new umbrella. Lopez said the finer details, relating to the fee structure and the cut-off point for the transitioning of the associations to the new body, are being finalised.
ASSISTANCE
The private sector has got assistance from Caribbean Regional Programme for Economic Competitiveness (CPEC) which has provided consultants, but she refused to comment on the cost to finance the project. "We just have to find funds from whatever means we can," she said.
"This difficult set of negotiations will result in a more powerful private sector lobby, and a secretariat capable of better servicing the needs of members and providing quality research," Ammar advised his JCC members.
Ammar also made reference Tuesday to a 'Partnership for Progress' initiative, which he said was meant to address governance issues. Holding details of those plans extremely close to his chest, Ammar told his members that he could say little on the matter now, but the initiative was meant to address "governance" issues, and address relations between the public and private sectors.
