Dionne Rose, Staff Reporter

( L - R ) Johnson , Monteith

Ten Government agencies will now be required to contribute to the HEART Trust, following the Senate's approval of the Human and Resource Training Act.

State Minister in the Education Ministry Senator Noel Monteith, who moved the order in the Senate on Friday, said these defunct agencies were having an effect on the balance sheet of the national training institution.

"The ability of the trust to competently and efficiently dis-charge its function in order to maintain its benchmark world-class standard is highly dependent on the three per cent HEART contributions paid by employers whose average monthly emolument payment to employees exceeds $14,444 ."

While supporting the order, Leader of Opposition Business, Senator Anthony Johnson, ques-tioned why some entities had not been initially contributing to the institution.

"... People like the Development Bank of Jamaica, the Jamaica Mortgage Bank, the Betting Gaming Commission, Petcom - that is a whole lot of money, that is millions and millions of dollars a month that ought to have been getting into HEART," he said. "So were they paying it and not aware that the law didn't cover them?"

Monteith could not say whether these agencies were paying before.

Meanwhile, Opposition trade unionist Senator Dwight Nelson expressed concern as to why the boost in training had not translated into a concomitant plunge in the number of untrained persons in the national labour force.

Earlier, Senator Monteith reported that it was projected that more than 80,000 persons were to be certified by HEART by fiscal year 2007/09.

dionne.rose@gleanerjm.com

Ten agencies added