INTERESTED stakeholders are being encouraged to make submissions to the joint select committee now reviewing the Security Interest in Personal Property Act, 2013 (SIPPA).

At the committee’s first meeting on Thursday, Committee Chairman Senator Aubyn Hill said specific groups as well as the general public are invited to give comments and recommendations. He said an official invitation is to be transmitted mainly via the ministry’s social media platforms.

“I am going to ask the Company’s Office [of Jamaica] to work with the clerk of Parliament. These [advertisements] must go out across social media. The Ministry of Industry, Investment and Commerce must be tagged, every one of the 20 agencies in that ministry must be tagged, I must be tagged…and other bodies that make sense for them to be tagged immediately…so we can get the message out,” he said, noting that advertisements are also to be run in a newspaper and possibly on radio.

He said the specific groups are the Jamaican Bar Association, the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica, the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce, the Small Business Association, the Jamaica Bankers Association, Jamaica Co-operative Credit Union League. He said the Combined Disabilities Association will also be invited at the request of Senator Dr Floyd Morris who is visually impaired.

Hill, who is also minister of industry, investment and commerce, explained that SIPPA, which was passed into law on December 30, 2013 and came into effect January 2, 2014, creates a legal framework inter alia for the use of personal property as collateral to secure credit or other obligations from deposit-taking institutions.

“The SIPPA regime is intended to promote and revitalise commerce. It seeks to remove any ambiguity relating to whom such property was pledged and allows the second creditor the right to seize and repossess such property speedily upon default of payment. SIPPA sought to repeal and replace any other law that governs the creation of security interests in personal profit in Jamaica, thereby ensuring certainty and consistency in the area of the law,” he said.

Hill said that the industry, investment and commerce ministry along with many of its agencies and those from other ministries want to urgently have this piece of legislation properly put in place and operational “so that it helps people who are not largely endowed with great amount of collateral to use the amount that they have, generally small, to secure facilities from lending institutions, so they can monetise those assets and use that money to create other value or services for themselves and their families.”

“So this is a very important piece of legislation. It has been around for a while. We’d like to make sure we get this through quite expeditiously so that it can get in place to help people,” Hill said.