Dionne Rose, Business Reporter
Samuda
Columbus Communications, trading in Jamaica as Flow, is to transfer its operational base to Caymanas in St Catherine, a plan the company said would cost US$20 million ($1.4 billion).
But now the cable company is complaining that its plans to buy the property are being blocked by the ministry of agriculture after two years of negotiations - putting Flow's relocation plans on hold, at least for now.
The blockade encountered by Flow is also likely to put Industry Minister Karl Samuda's ambitious 500-acre economic free zone plan at risk, but the minister has vowed it won't happen.
That plan, Financial Gleaner sources said, was costed at US$2.5 billion, but Samuda said Thursday that its value might be higher.
The minister had announced Tuesday that Flow would be setting up its operations centre on a five-acre site in the Caymanas area.
Zoned for agricultural use
But on Wednesday Michele English, vice-president and general manager of Flow, advised the Financial Gleaner that the ministry of agriculture is refusing to sell the property, saying it was zoned for agricultural use.
"We received approvals from all other government organisations but the ministry of agriculture would not approve the subdividing of the land and the sale to our company at this point because they say it is agriculturally zoned right now," she said.
Caymanas, the home of horse racing, has traditionally been used for cane cultivation.
English said that the company has been in negotiations to acquire the land since 2006 and was planning to relocate its warehouse operations centre, a call centre and a day care facility for its employees there.
"It would have been sort of our company's campus," she said.
"We would have expected to see 400 to 500 employees working at the facility and that was the purpose for which we tried to acquire the land," she told the Financial Gleaner.
On Tuesday, Karl Samuda, minister of industry, investment and commerce told the House of Representatives, as he opened the Sectoral Debate, that one of his plans was to establish an economic free zone on 500 acres of lands in the Caymanas area.
Targeted industries, he said, included assembly plants for electronics, light manufacturing facilities, software development, telecommunication and informa-tion technology.
Triple play network
Samuda trumpeted Flow - a company that in the past three years has pumped billions into building out a triple play network in Jamaica and is investing approximately $7 billion per year going forward - as the type of operation he was going after.
Flow is principally owned by billionaire investor Michael Lee Chin.
The minister told the Financial Gleaner that he was aware of the impasse, and was now pushing to have the entire 500 acres of lands re-zoned.
"The area is designated agricultural right now," he said. "We are putting in motion all that is required to get the approvals for land utilisation and the whole re-zoning of the land to be industrial rather than agricultural," said the Minister.
Samuda has set a time frame of three months for the re-zoning, saying he was not prepared to allow bureaucratic delays to prevent his plan from taking off.
"If I am going to move industry in this country, I am not going to be able to do it if I am humbugged by the bureaucracy that attends this approval process," said Samuda.
"That is the kind of investment (Flow's) I want and I don't have any time to fool around with people who are going to retard the progress of industrial development and the development of essential services."
English said her company was in the process of looking at other lands in the Portmore and Spanish Town areas to set up its operations centre.
"We need a facility and so, we are continuing to look at alternatives because we have to have a place where we can host our call centre, our warehouse and so on," she said.
"So, we are proceeding to assure that we find ourselves with a suitable location," she said.
dionne.rose@gleanerjm.com
