Cutter: Privatise juvenile facilities

The Patricia Sinclair McCalla-led modernisation team wants the management of juvenile correctional centres to be privatised.

If the proposal is accepted by the Government, it would mean that the State would only be responsible for housing the juveniles and funding capital works.

The report of the modernisation unit was tabled in Parliament on Tuesday as a green paper.

Prime Minister Bruce Golding says he hopes Jamaicans will read the document and that it will generate debate in the country.

The modernisation group has recommended that the management functions of all state-residential institutions for senior citizens be divested as well.

It has also suggested that private hands steer the management of government-owned children's homes.

Nutrition contracts

Sinclair McCalla, the cutter-in-chief tasked with putting the bloated Government on a diet, has suggested that Nutrition Products Limited, manufacturers of meals for schoolchildren, should also cease operating in its current form. Her team of technocrats recommends that the services be contracted out.

"Provision of school meals for the School Feeding Programme is to be contracted out at the parish level, as this is a service the Government pays for but need not perform," the report says.

The Public Sector Master Rationalisation Plan was fast-tracked last year when the prime minister decided that the public sector was inefficient and that the state wage bill should be reduced. Although its aim is not purely to cut public-sector jobs, it is intended to help the Government streamline its business.