WESTERN BUREAU – For St James businessman, Alvis Lock the two-day seminar put on by the Office of The Registrar of Companies (ORC) in Montego Bay earlier this week, could not have come at a better time.

Lock told the Observer that for more than a year now he has been trying to register his electrical parts business, but without “much luck”.

“Last year there was an amnesty and they said if you register within a certain time, you would pay a $500 fee to register. I filled out the necessary forms but to date I have not received a response from the Registrar of Companies in Kingston,” Lock said.

When asked if he had made inquiries at the ORC about the status of his application, Lock responded:

“Mi not going to Kingston, not under mi dead body, there is too much violence there. Mi prefer go a prison than to go a Kingston,” he said gravely.

The 50-odd year-old Lock has not been to the island’s capital for more than 15 years. And he is of the view that an ORC office should be established in the western part of the island even though after this week’s seminar and the assistance that he has received from the ORC, he is confident that his business will be registered within a matter of weeks.

Like Lock, most of the persons who attended the seminar expressed the need for an office of the ORC to be located in the region.

“It just doesn’t make sense travelling to Kingston to get the necessary forms for the registration of my business,” one businesswoman remarked.

“Kingston is not Jamaica. The forms cost about $50 each and traveling to Kingston where the ORC is located costs a lot more than that,” she stressed.

But complaints supervisor at the ORC, Simonie Barrett told the participants that the relevant forms are available at Inland Revenue Departments islandwide.

She admitted, however, that the stocks of forms are not replenished on a regular basis but promised that the ORC will make sure that that problem is addressed.

The Montego Bay seminar, according to Barrett, formed part of the ORC’s drive to provide better service to its clients and the general public across the island.

She said the programme was implemented because of complaints received by the ORC about the need for better service.

“For example, people complained that they had to travel to Kingston all the time just to fill out a form or to file a document and in most cases to travel to Kingston costs much more than the document,” Barrett explained.

“The Montego Bay seminar was the first of its kind in the island and we will be moving through several other parishes trying to facilitate registration and better public understanding of what the ORC is about,” she added.

In January the ORC will hold seminars in the parishes of Manchester and St Elizabeth.

During the two-day seminar in Montego Bay representatives of the ORC were kept busy conducting searches and making status checks, assisting in the filling out of forms and accepting company documents.

Seminar participants were also taught how to register their businesses, to file returns and how to start up a business.

Haitian national, Verbo Moise told the Observer at the end of the first day that he had learnt a lot from the seminar and added that he was now in a position to submit documents to the ORC for registering a non-charitable organisation he plans to establish in Jamaica.

“They gave me the necessary information that I needed so now I can go ahead and do what I have to do. I am going to speak to my board members and have the documents filled out,” Moise added.

Barrett said she was very satisfied with the level of participation and response from the public.

“There was a good turn-out and people were eager to find out what was happening and they welcomed the idea that the ORC was actually coming to them,” she stated.

She stressed, however, that although there were calls for the ORC to set up offices in the western end of the island, there were no immediate plans to do so.

“For the time being what we have to do is to try and visit the different parts of the island on a regular basis, especially in the west where there are a lot of clients to be serviced,” she added.