KINGSTON, Jamaica — The Government has been having a hard time trying to recruit a Chief Executive Officer for the Cannabis Licencing Authority (CLA), which was set up two years ago to establish and regulate a legal ganja and hemp industry in Jamaica.

Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Industry Investment and Commerce, Donovan Stanberry told the PAAC a short while ago that the agency is now without a CEO as the former CEO Greg Douglas has returned to his substantive post at the Bureau of Standards Jamaica.

“It hasn’t been easy to recruit a CEO for the CLA,” Stanberry said, but noted that the difficulty in finding a suitable CEO is not dissimilar to what happens across other agencies of Government.

Douglas was assigned to the CLA on secondment from the BSJ, a common practice in the public service.

“We are now moving with dispatch to identify a new CEO,” the permanent secretary stated.

He also informed that the CLA has received 315 applications for licenses so far of which three have been issued, and eight granted.

Alphea Saunders