JIS Vital to Government Communication Process – Minister Buchanan

The Jamaica Information Service (JIS) has been commended by the Government for exceeding performance targets in the last financial year and for successfully carrying out its mandates.
Minister of Information and Development, Donald Buchanan in his contribution to the Sectoral Debate in the House of Representatives yesterday, (June 5), informed that the JIS, whose website has registered more than five million hits per month in the past year, has improved government’s ability to communicate with Jamaicans and is widely regarded in the Caribbean as a model for Government Information Services.
“Building on the success of past initiatives, including the establishment of digital facilities, the Agency has, in the last financial year, exceeded its performance targets and generally, has performed well in carrying out its functions,” he told the House.
Mr. Buchanan lauded the agency for its “consistent” enunciation of government policies and programmes across the electronic media through the daily flagship programme, ‘Jamaica Magazine’ and its television productions, the daily dissemination of news and feature articles to media houses and to the public via the JIS website which he added, “continues to be vital to the process of government communication”.
“The JIS not only boasts its own impressive website providing information and links to all Government Ministries and a number of public entities, but has in the past year established and maintained websites, all of first class quality, for public bodies,” he stated.
The Information Minister noted that this has “increased and improved” the government’s ability to communicate with its constituents and partners, chiefly Jamaicans at home and in the Diaspora.
Paying tribute to the “exemplary course” charted by Agency’s former Chief Executive Officer, Carmen Tipling, he said that structural changes and visionary leadership at the agency has made it the “credible source of government information” it is today.
He said that the JIS, the principle organ mandated by law, to provide public information in Jamaica and the overseas, will continue to lead the process of informing Jamaicans at home and abroad about the policy priorities of government.
“In the current fiscal year, and beyond, with new leadership the JIS intends to transform the promotion of information about the system and activities of government,” Mr. Buchanan revealed.