Mair questions Hylton’s performance
THE performance of Industry, Investment and Commerce Minister Anthony Hylton has been called into question by his Opposition Jamaica Labour Party counterpart Gregory Mair.
Mair launched a broadside against the minister during his contribution in the 2013/14 Sectoral Debates at Gordon House on Tuesday.
“After 17 months in Government, Minister Hylton has achieved nothing, continues to only talk about plans he inherited from the previous administration, and he has not brought one single new idea to the table,” Mair charged.
According to Mair, the minister’s ‘tardiness’ in handling his portfolio could be the reason he is not the one leading the charge to develop Jamaica as a global logistics hub.
“Is this why the prime minister, in her contribution to the Budget Debate, announced that it is now being led by Professor Gordon Shirley who will Chair a National Task Force? Why is the ninister not chairing and leading this process? Could it be that the Prime Minister is fed up of the Minister’s tardiness?” Mair said.
According to the Opposition spokesman, “the logistics hub is a pipe dream until the minister presents the nation with a credible plan, with details and deadlines”.
“It will only be a pipe dream which will disappear and will, by 2015, be lost to our regional competitors, who are already ahead of the curve. Minister, the race started three years ago and you are still in the starting block gearing up,” he criticised.
He said another example of foot-dragging by the current minister is the progress on the development of the Caymanas Economic Zone, for which his party had left a template before losing the December 2011 general elections.
“This year, Minister Hylton reported that Cabinet has re-affirmed the decision of the previous administration to utilise the 200 acres of land earmarked at Caymanas Estate. It has taken the minister over 16 months to get the Cabinet to approve a project he inherited in January 2012, and he expects us to believe that he will be able to have the global logistics hub up and running by 2015,” Mair said.
He said if it was that the minister was confident of the achievement of that deadline, he would need to indicate the status of the dredging of the Kingston Harbour, the trans-shipment commodity port in Yallahs-St Thomas and the dry dock facility at Jackson Bay, Clarendon.
The establishment of the logistics centre at Caymanas forms part of the Jamaica logistics hub initiative — the brainchild of the former Bruce Golding-led Jamaica Labour Party Administration of which Mair was a part. Among the other tasks which must be done in order to meet the 2015 deadline of the opening of the widened Panama Canal are the dredging of the Kingston Harbour channel; privatisation and modernisation of the port of Kingston; establishment of the logistics centre at Caymanas; and implementation of a community port system at Jamaica Customs.