By Andrew Green, Staff Reporter
JAMPRO promoting Jamaican products in Europe. - File
THE 22 positions made redundant at Jamaica Promotions Corporation (JAMPRO) last Friday brings its staff count to 73, a massive fall from the over 300 employees it had at full stretch.
The government investment and export promotion agency has been restructured several times over the past five years to improve its effectiveness. But the latest cuts are a different matter, said its president, Mrs. Patricia Francis.
"This last re-organisation was prompted by our budgetary situation," she said. "It was not a voluntary decision."
A cut in its budget allocation meant that more that 70 per cent of its resources would have had to go into paying staff.
CONSTRAINT
A further constraint is that, "even the approved budget allocation is not being given to you," she said. "I will not preside over an organisation which can't pay its bills." In an effort to ensure a balance between recurring costs and programmes and projects, a meeting of the board of directors determined that it was necessary to reassign resources from staff costs into programmes and projects. Without that decision, "we would just have a bunch of people sitting in the office looking at each other," she said. "We would not have been able to deliver our services."
The organisation received financial assistance from the Ministry of Finance and Planning to help it bear the cost of the redundancies, she said.
"Morale at this point is not what I would like it to be," Mrs. Francis said. "Any further reductions will jeopardise the organisation." But the money invested in modernising JAMPRO, "is paying off," she said. With modern technology and a focus on its core activities, the company now does more with less.
Before the restructuring started, "the resources were spread more," said communications manager Beverley Josephs. "We were involved in a lot more aspects of investments and export."
The company has divested itself of some responsibilities, Mrs. Francis said. "We have given up certification of manufacturers. That is a regulatory function."
TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE
And the technical assistance many companies need is now provided by the Jamaica Business Development Centre.
"We are now focused on investment promotion and export development," Mrs. Josephs said.
Internally, the company is now more technology driven, Mrs. Francis said. Many processes which required communicating with JAMPRO staff in the past, can now be carried out online.
"We used to have technical people in here," Mrs. Francis said. "Now we buy their services from private sector. We do employ engineers, but on a supervisory basis, to monitor the services being provided."
Personal secretaries have been eliminated and the pooled secretaries now serve groups of people doing the necessary filing.
From its peak employment of over 300, JAMPRO slimmed down to 277 employees in 1998, when there was a further 40 per cent cut in staff. Redundancy exercises since then brought the staff count down to 95 in early 2003, before the latest cuts were announced.
BUSINESS PROCESS
"JAMPRO has put in place business processes that now mirror a corporation, rather than an agency of government," chairman Joseph A. Matalon stated at a seminar earlier this year. He said, "we have truly transformed into a modern corporation with global best practice capabilities."
The work of JAMPRO is "very critical at this point," said Mrs. Francis. "Jamaica has to find a way to earn its way out of its current situation." JAMPRO-assisted companies generated J$16.8 Billion in capital investments, have increased their export sales by 35 per cent and generated 5,091 jobs for the year 2002/03. At the same time, Jamaica's performance index in attracting Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) has increased consistently since 2001 when it was ranked 26th, to the present ranking of 23rd of 140 UN member countries, in the World Investment Report 2003.
"We will have to build from here," Mrs. Francis said.
