JMA, MinEd to sign MOU - Local printers secure textbook concession
Published:Friday | June 28, 2013 | 12:00 AM
The Jamaica Manufac-turers' Association (JMA) and the Ministry of Education will sign a memoran-dum of understanding (MOU) in a few weeks that will lock in business for local printers, newly re-elected JMA President Brian Pengelley said Wednesday.
The agreement is expected to funnel at least one-tenth of the printing needs of the Ministry of Education to local businesses, starting in 2014.
The concession is a win for local businesses who have been lobbying against external competition for years, but not a total victory. The Government had long opened up the contracts to outside competition as a cost-containment measure.
"This is huge, as it will stimulate the expansion of the Jamaican printing sector and create employment," Pengelley said at the JMA annual general meeting in Kingston, where he was returned as president for a second term. The business generated annually by the ministry is valued at J$64 million, he said.
Education Minister Ronald Thwaites referenced the issue in May during his contribution to the Sectoral Debate.
He said then that a printing industry committee had recom-mended a new policy approach to manufacture books and other printed materials that are owned by the Government of Jamaica.
The committee is to propose a strategy that would, over time, incrementally add titles to the list reserved for local printing, focusing on books for which the copyright owners are Jamaican publishing companies.
It is the private sector and not the state that controls publishing rights to the majority of the publications, he said.
The target is to have 10 per cent of books printed locally next year, Thwaites told lawmakers.
Reached by phone on Thursday, the ministry's acting Permanent Secretary Grace McLean said she was in a meeting and could not immediately comment on Pengelley's disclosure.
Pengelley also argued on Wednesday that the goal of the Government and its agencies should be to locally source at least 20 per cent of all the goods and services it purchases by financial year 2014-15, and that printing of books is a start in that direction.
"We are to work on the details of the agreement because, so far, we just had one meeting and this was agreed on, but the details are not yet worked out. We are to meet with them again in a few weeks and, at that time, we are supposed to be signing the MOU," said the JMA president.
Members of the sector are reviewing the associated costs to determine how to distribute the printed books at competitive prices. The contracts could be too large for any one printer to handle, so they agreed that they would combine efforts to complete each contract, he said.
"Cost is important, but we are trying to look at ways to bring down the cost on them. We don't know just how yet, but we have got the commitment from them [printers] and we have some numbers that we are crunching," Pengelley told the meeting.
"The objective is to try to get the printers to start rolling again and you know after that starts, the more you do the more efficient you can get and the cheaper it will become to the printer, so cost should not be an issue anymore," he said.
Preparations for the printing of schoolbooks start from November of the previous school year, said Thwaites, explaining why the agreement with the printers would not have taken effect this year.
"We could not catch this year, but we are determined to print the workbooks and some other materials locally, starting next year. We must try to keep as much of that nearly one billion dollars for schoolbooks locally to create jobs and revive the printing industry," Thwaites said.