By Robert Hart, Staff ReporterTHE HOUSE of Representatives yesterday approved amendments to the Bank of Jamaica Act which will allow the Government to regulate money transfer and remittance agents and agencies.
According to Dr. Omar Davies, Minister of Finance and Planning, the amendments make provision "for persons currently carrying out, or intending to provide money transfer and remittance services to obtain authorisation from the Minister of Finance and Planning to continue with or to commence the provision of these services."
Dr. Davies also noted, while piloting the Bill during yesterday's sitting of the House, that it would also require those persons to "operate solely in accordance with the directions to be issued by the Minister of Finance and Planning through the Bank of Jamaica."
But Audley Shaw, Opposition Spokesman on Finance, questioned whether the Government could actually be attempting new methods of reaping in foreign exchange through remittance services.
"Is it because the remittance industry, now being the new cash cow, that he (the Minister) wishes to take on to himself wider powers to be arbitrarily exercised?," he asked. But Dr. Davies, in response to the concerns of Mr. Shaw and Opposition members Karl Samuda, Delroy Chuck and Edmund Bartlett, suggested that there was nothing sinister about the new move.
"All we are seeking to do is to bring some order to an industry which has grown far beyond the scope we had anticipated, and there is nothing more beyond that," he said.
The amended provisions also outline the offences and the fines and penalties to be imposed for the committing of those offences.
"The proposed amendments seek to implement a regime that accords a level of supervision similar to that in place for cambios or bureaux de change," Dr. Davies stressed. He also noted that this was because money transfer and remittance agents and agencies do not take deposits and are not repositories of the savings and investments of the public.
