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Cabinet has approved the National Housing Trust (Amendment) Bill, to impose new penalties on employers who fail to hand over payments deducted on behalf of the Trust. The Bill, which is to be introduced in Parliament soon, increases the fine for breach of regulations under the Act from $5,000 to $30,000. It also provides the Finance Minister with the power...

Information Minister, Senator Burchell Whiteman, has said that details of initiatives to be implemented to improve public order in the country, should be fully developed by March this year. He said the projects would be implemented on a month-by-month, sector-by-sector basis and would be accompanied by a public education programme, "so that people will know what the objectives are, what...

Sustainable development in its most basic form is inconceivable without the participation of all people, Keith Evans, Representative for the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in Jamaica, has emphasised. Speaking at a press briefing at IDB headquarters in Kingston recently, the IDB official said the importance of participation became obvious from as far back as 1987, when the IDB held its...

Head of the Inter American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) Kingston office, Candis Hamilton, has pointed to the importance of human rights groups in ensuring the protection of individual liberties, and noted that such liberties were not minimized in the pursuit of other interests. Citing the increased parity of economic, social and cultural rights to the better-established civil and political...

In my most recent broadcast to the nation, I spoke of the government's determination to reduce the deficit in the first instance and then to eliminate it altogether in the 2005 to 2006 budget year. But even as we come together to get the economy working for the Jamaican people, I am deeply disturbed about our prospects as a nation...

Ambassador Stafford Neil, Jamaica's Permanent Representative to the United Nations (UN) has been elected as one of four Vice Presidents of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). In an interview with JIS News after his election on January 21 at the UN headquarters in New York, Ambassador Neil vowed to meet the many challenges that were sure to come...

In a move to improve the capability of the Public Accountancy Board to carry out its functions, the Senate on Friday (Jan. 30) passed amendments to the Public Accountancy Act, which will clarify and intensify the responsibilities and functions of the board. The changes will provide for higher standards of professional conduct within the accountancy profession to allow for improved...

Members of the Jamaica Agricultural Society (JAS) should now find it easier to access legal services or advice as the organisation has retained the services of a legal officer and has established a Legal Council to provide assistance to its members. President of the JAS, Senator Norman Grant, told farmers in St. James that his organisation contracted a legal officer...

President of the Jamaica Agricultural Society (JAS), Senator Norman Grant, has emphasised the need for a Central Marketing Company for farmers within the organisation, adding that farmers must be able to go to their fields and focus only on production. "When you produce your crops, there is supposed to be an organisation that takes it off you, an organisation that...

To improve its customer service, the Land Titles Division of the National Land Agency (NLA) recently introduced simpler legal forms to assist customers in their application process. Registrar of Titles and Director of Land Titles at the NLA, Alfred McPherson made this disclosure at a JIS Think Tank on January 28. The simpler forms are intended to hasten the time...

A group of nine Early Childhood Education (ECE) students from a Canadian college are doing field placement work at several basic schools in Western Jamaica. The group will stay in Jamaica for one month during which time the student teachers will participate in teaching practice sessions at West End Basic, White Hall Preparatory and Negril Basic schools in Westmoreland. Led...

The US$39 million Great River to Lucea Water Supply project in Western Jamaica, which is being done through two contracts, is progressing ahead of schedule and within budget. Minister of State for Water, Harry Douglas, gave this update during a press conference at the Great River Water Treatment Plant on the border of St. James and Hanover, on Friday, January...