The Government has no intention of socialising the debt of failed financial institutions, says Prime Minister, Andrew Holness.

He made the declaration, while delivering the keynote address at the opening of the Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE) Investment and Capital Markets Conference on Monday (Jan. 24) where he said that the full force of he law must be brought to bear in the case of alleged multibillion dollar fraud at Stocks and Securities Limited (SSL).

“The Government will not ….socialise the failure of our banks to be prudential and to protect their customers,” he stated.

“This would send a very bad signal that individuals or entities can be delinquent in their fiduciary obligations and expect [others] to cover their negligence. That will not happen,” the Prime Minister stressed.

He argued that if the full force of the law is not applied in matters of this nature, then “our free and competitive financial market, which is what distinguishes Jamaica from other financial markets in the region, will not work.”

“It works when the players and actors know that they must operate at the highest standards of integrity and probity; if not, they will face the consequences of the law. The Minister of Finance has… announced that the penalty regime for various financial and white collar crimes will be reviewed, making it absolutely clear that those kinds of crimes will not be tolerated,” the Prime Minister added.

The investigations at SSL are being led by the Financial Investigations Division (FID) and the Fraud Squad, while the assistance of the United States (US) Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) has been requested.

The Prime Minister stressed that those who are responsible must be held to account.

He said he has instructed government entities, transacting business with SSL to disclose their connections or association with the securities firm, “so that the public can make their own determination.”

“We want to get to the truth of this matter… to uncover it and to expose it and to bring those responsible to account and secure justice for the victims,” Mr. Holness said.

President of the Global Services Association of Jamaica (GSAJ), Anand Biradar has numerous plans to improve the business process outsourcing (BPO) sector this year.

In an interview with the Western Mirror, Biradar said this year “the primary focus will be on formally having ‘work from home’ incorporated in the special economic zones legislation. So, starting January 2024, Jamaica will have a fully comprehensive work from home policy for the special economic zone sector.”

Subsequently, he will be working with the Global Services Sector (GSS) and other parties to a wider network for attracting more talent and also working on developing persons leaving school to make work more people enjoyable.

This network will seek to include more skilled customer service workers in the sector. Biradar said these workers will have to know when to be empathic, as well as being very emotionally caring to approximately 40 customers daily. They will continue to train individuals to have an “I want to solve their problem attitude” so both the customers and the employees are satisfied.

Additionally, employees will acquire transferable skills to other sectors, such as critical thinking, problem solving, traffic orientation and data analytics skills.

Biradar said the BPO sector trains “very well and they will give persons the knowledge they need to do the job. You can start from a 100,000 salary a month, to a 1 million salary a month in less than 10 year (which)… doesn’t happen as fast in other industries.” Notwithstanding these new skills, they will also be securing their data in the industry.

“With the new data privacy act and importance of cyber security… we will put a lot in educating all the industry stakeholders on the data privy act. (This will) make everyone more compliant with the police to make sure they are keeping watch on all security aspects,” said Biradar.

The GSAJ president said if the sector does not increase and have a good data security measures it will become an issue. He said “all these have been problems in the past and I think we have done well to solve them to some degree and we need to continue this focus and move forward.”

EXPAND IN THE WEST

At the same time, the BPO sector plans to expand its market in western Jamaica which includes 500,000 sq foot of space being used to build in multiple places to accommodate growth in the entire sector. In addition to the expansion initiatives, the BPO sector plans to retain more staff and reduce their attrition rates.

The attrition rate is the pace at which people leave a company. The business process outsourcing sector plans is to invest in its employees’ education and incorporate more recreational activities. However, the GSAJ president affirmed that each office has their own way of incorporating recreational activities.

In spite of this, Biradar stated that the GSAJ will be launching an island football league involving several BPO teams for the first time. It will begin on February 6th, with plans to improve it in 2024.