MINISTER of Industry, Investment and Commerce Senator Aubyn Hill says the Government is working to address the issue of imported substandard commodities which have found their way into the Jamaican marketplace.

Piloting the National Compliance and Regulatory Authority (NCRA) Act, 2023 through the Senate last Friday, Hill said this is one strategy the Government is employing to ensure greater-quality imported goods.

Hill lamented that there are 137 importers of rice in Jamaica and when checks were made it was found they were all in breach and that all the imported rice was supplied by the same place.

“The Bureau of Standards Jamaica [BSJ] is an agency in my ministry — this is why I’m getting this legislation done. We never even asked the people who send the supply of rice to grade them…now it’s being done. I had the BSJ go in and change the standard,” said Hill.

He pointed out that when the issue of substandard rice was raised last year it appeared that the owner of a company that imports rice, Charles Tufton who is son of Minister of Health Dr Christopher Tufton, was the only importer of rice, when in fact there were more than 100 other importers taking the product into the country.

“He had to go and write and defend himself in the newspaper. Everybody breached [what] is now going to be fixed…Part of why we’re doing the NCRA arrangement is to make sure that you separate the people who do the test from the people who do the operations,” said Hill.

The NCRA Bill seeks to formally shift the regulatory functions of the BSJ to an administratively created body — the National Compliance and Regulatory Authority (NCRA).

The passage of the Bill now puts into effect the legal separation of the BSJ regulatory division from the NCRA, seven years after the work was completed.

This separation of the regulatory functions from the BSJ is necessary to address the conflict of interest that arises when a single body performs conformity assessments and sets standards, and is also required to regulate the standards that it sets.

The issue of substandard imports arose again after Opposition Senator Lambert Brown queried whether the Bill deals with imports in the domestic market .

“I’m not sensing that this Bill is aimed at dealing with importation as well — and that’s a big part of our economy. So there’s a dispute recently about rice, whether the rice imported was of the proper standard. Will this Bill address that? Because it seems to be excluding importation. I would hope that we would insert in the Bill ‘importation’,” said Brown.

“We have seen in the past, fans imported into the country having difficulty and we’ve seen agencies recalling products — talc powder is one such in recent times. Does this Bill address importation? And is the Government averse to putting in the Bill itself the word importation so it makes it abundantly clear…beyond any doubt that importation is intended to be part of the responsibility of the NRCA?” queried Brown as he pointed to complaints about the quality of concrete blocks and coconut water.

Hill, who piloted the Bill, noted that the legislation already covers the matter of imported goods. He noted that Section (C) of Clause 3, Item 2 of the Bill speaks to sale in the domestic market.

“Anything that’s sold in the domestic market has to be dealt with here that adequately addresses that issue,” declared Hill.

On the issue of concrete blocks the minister said the “standards weren’t clear, weren’t being supported, they didn’t have enough staff”.

He added that new equipment is now being bought and new technology is now being utilised to ensure greater quality standards.