Gov’t red tape a shackle for development – King

Government red tape is again being fingered as a barrier to development with Recycling Partners of Jamaica (RPJ) the latest entity to come out against bureaucratic hurdles it said is hobbling its efforts to expand the islandwide network of depots, at which it collects plastic bottles made from polyethylene terephthalate, also called PET, a type of clear, strong, lightweight and 100 per cent recyclable plastic, as well as those made from high-density polyethylene, a thermoplastic polymer made from petroleum.

“We are trying to increase our capacity as fast as we can. We have been trying to open depots and ultimately we want to have at least one depot in each parish but the bureaucratic hurdles to opening a plastic processing plant are difficult,” Dr Damien King, chairman of the RPJ Board of Directors, told The Gleaner recently.

Approval must be given by the National Environment and Planning Agency, National Land Agency and municipal corporations for the construction and operation of a depot, but even after these have been secured, there is no guarantee that things will work out.

“We secured a site to open a depot in Portland and after one year of going through the process of securing approvals from all of those agencies, at the very last moment the land was taken from us because another government agency had use for it. So we now have to start over that exercise and that is going to take us another year,” a frustrated Dr King disclosed during a tour of the Lakes Pen depot in St Catherine.

“I am not even claiming that bureaucracy is a bad thing. Bureaucracy exists for a reason because you can’t just have people building anything they want, anywhere they want. You need rules and guidance. So this is not a complaint about bureaucracy, just recognition of the need to put infrastructure in place for something on this scale because the process is slow and difficult.”

In August, Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries Pearnel Charles Jr, who is also a Cabinet member, criticised the Government’s bureaucracy which he said was strangling development. This was at the handover ceremony for two tractors to the Rural Agricultural Development Authority, an agency of his ministry. This acquisition was two years in the making.

“We have to break down that barrier that is holding back our efficiency. But we don’t have nobody to talk to but us, because a we run the sector. Who can I quarrel about? Me a the minister now,” he told the handover ceremony.

Charles Jr also made a case for the maintenance of bureaucracy as an integral safeguard in the procurement process.

“Bureaucracy has been misinterpreted, has taken on a negative connotation. It used to mean state officials doing work according to rule, people who are adhering to rules. Now it has become barriers to progress and we have to find a way to balance the accountability and the rules,” he charged.