Ashford W. Meikle, Staff Reporter
Doreen Frankson, President of Jamaica Manufacturers' Association.
THE PRESIDENT of the Jamaica Manufacturers' Association (JMA), Doreen Frankson, has harshly criticised the Government for what she describes as its ad hoc approach to small business development.
"What is important to the manufacturing sector at this time is facilitation. We have to stop doing things piecemeal. We have to have a policy for small businesses. We have been talking about this support and we have made many proposals to the Government, showing them models and they have not taken any abroad," Frankson told JMA members at its annual general meeting last Wednesday at it headquarters on Duke Street in downtown Kingston.
She suggested that Government was insincere in its support of small businesses especially as it related to funding and bureaucracy.
"Every attempt to get the Government to make more than incremental steps towards the small business sector has fallen on deaf ears.
"Government is prepared to mention these things, but not to do anything about it. The days of speech making without bold initiatives to follow up their words are past," she said.
She repeated past calls for the government to reduce the red tape in doing business since "what is important to the manufacturing sector at this time is facilitation."
PROCUREMENT POLICY
Frankson also called on the Government to implement the "procurement policy, which has been floating around for two years." The policy ensures that a certain percentage of government contracts are awarded to small businesses.
Assessing her efforts, the JMA president said she was disappointed in the lack of support from the Government. "I am frustrated. When I came into the office at JMA, I felt I had a partner to work with in the Government and so I had a very facilitative approach, but we just going along and we not going anywhere and at the end of four years I would have achieved very little for my members."
She noted that the Government, for example, had not removed the two per cent cess, which is levied on imports and was introduced by the Finance Minister three years ago. "We have been asking for the (two per cent) cess to be taken off equipment for retooling. That has fallen on deaf ears."
Frankson expressed regret that "to do business in Jamaica is hard, everything is a hassle, the red tape the bureaucracy. It's not a pleasure to do business here. For example they are looking at back taxes now and the first set of people they go after are the people who pay and the people who toe the line and the tax dodgers get away all the time."
