THE GOVERNMENT'S Public Sector Modernisation Programme (PSMP) is advancing, with phase two of the exercise expected to begin by June this year.
According to George Briggs, Head of the Public Sector Reform Unit (PSRU), phase two of the programme will see the continuation of the establishment of Executive Agencies and the modernisation of Ministries.
He said that by the year 2010 the target is to have 75 per cent of Government organisations functioning as Executive Agencies. "This means that some will be designated executive agencies under the Executive Agency Act but some will be reconfigured along the same principles although not being Executive Agencies," he said.
The PSRU executive said that the plan was to focus on three agencies per year. "We will be picking up the pace and each year we are looking to add three or four to the number that has already received Executive Agency status," he explained.
The organisations to become Executive Agencies include the Child Development Agency, set for April 2003, the Passport Office, the Mines and Geology Division, the Bureau of Standards, the Postal Corporation of Jamaica, the Island Traffic Authority, the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN), the Transport Authority and the Tourist Board.
He informed that a joint mission would visit the island in the first week of March to work with the PSMP to further examine the areas for assistance. The group will include representatives from the IDB, the World Bank, the British Department For International Development (DFID), the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
Discussing the overall vision of the Reform process, Mr. Briggs said, "our vision is of an open and impartial public sector, which puts the public's interest first and in which valued and respected professionals deliver high quality service efficiently and effectively".
But what has been accomplished so far? Yvonne Coore-Johnson, Project Director of the PSMP said that some eight organisations had become Executive Agencies, two ministries were being modernised as policy ministries, and two Government run organisations as public entities.
Of the eight Executive Agencies, the first four - the Registrar General's Department (RGD), the Management Institute for National Development (MIND), Administrator General's Department, and the Office of the Registrar of Companies were established in 1999. The others - the Jamaica Information Service (JIS), the National Works Agency (NWA), National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) and the National Land Agency - were set up just two years ago.
Among those modernised were Jamaica Promotions (JAMPRO), the Customs Department, Ministry of Land and Environment under which the Environmental Programmes fall and the Ministry of Transport and Works, which has responsibility for the NWA.
Speaking to the success of all eight Agencies, Mrs. Coore-Johnson said, "to date they have been doing very well and we have seen remarkable progress".
She said the Office of the Registrar of Companies, which has responsibility for registering all companies doing business in Jamaica and maintaining records of these companies for tax purposes, had been doing a successful job.
