By Balford Henry, Senior Reporter
Paulwell
INVESTORS WILL be able to register their companies from their offices, Minister of Industry, Commerce and Technology Phillip Paulwell said yesterday.
According to Mr. Paulwell, in developing its technological capacity, the Registrar of Companies would soon be able to allow companies to be registered without personnel having to visit the office of the Registrar of Companies in New Kingston.
He said this was part of the process of the Registrar's increasing use of technology to expedite the processing documents for incorporation.
"In fact, right at this moment, from your office or from your home you can access the data base of the Registrar of Companies to do searches. You need not send people to the office to do searches any longer, you can do it from your home: The name of the company, the directors of the company and so on," he told the House of Representatives.
The Minister was speaking in the closing session of the debate on the 430-page Companies Act, which was passed yesterday in the House of Representatives. The debate began last Tuesday, but was adjourned to accommodate the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica's study of the proposals.
Opposition MPs Karl Samuda and Delroy Chuck supported the Bill, but warned that unless the right business environment was created it would not succeed.
Mr. Paulwell said it was important that having passed the Bill, the information was taken to the road, so the business community and, most importantly, the informal sector who were outside the reaches of the law, could be informed of the new provisions, including those allowing for one-person companies.
"We have to now encourage many of our businesses to become formalised and to reap benefits of being corporate," he said, reinforcing earlier statements from Minister of Financing and Planning, Dr. Omar Davies, on reaching out to bring the informal business sector under the law.
He said the Bill, which was supported by the Government and the Opposition, marked a "revolutionary change" in the way companies operated in Jamaica. The Bill was before a Joint Select Committee (JSC) of Parliament for two and a half years. The whole process lasted about 11 years.
