Tufton mandates customer-friendly policy

The Ministry of Industry, Investment and Commerce has launched a 19-agency customer survey aimed at identifying logjams in service delivery and then eliminating them.

The survey is being conducted by the Consumer Affairs Commission, which also falls under the ministry's ambit.

So far, only the Companies Office of Jamaica (COJ) has been surveyed, said the ministry's information officer, Novelette Bryan, and the team moved on in December to survey the Bureau of Standards Jamaica (BSJ) and the Trade Board. Those surveys should be finalised by the end of January.

The COJ results have not yet been analysed, Bryan said.

The turn-around time at the COJ for business name registration, changes to company information and annual returns and new company incorporation ranges between one and four days. Registration of changes takes a maximum five days to be processed.

Delivery times

The BSJ's delivery time is 18 days to test and issue approval certificates for low-acid and canned food; 12 days to test and issue approved certificate for other prescribed foods; two days to issue export certificates; five days to issue hygiene and free-sale certificates as well as exemption letters; five days to check weights and certify cheese for export; and 24 hours to issue entry certificate for steel bars after shipment arrive at ports.

The Trade Board's turnaround time has been improved for import licences to one working day and export certification can be completed on the same day.

The other 16 agencies are to be surveyed by the end of the financial year, as well as the ministry itself, in order to ensure that the industry is up to ISO standards, Bryan told the Financial Gleaner.

The satisfaction survey project is a direct mandate from Dr Christopher Tufton, the minister of industry, investment and commerce, and is aimed at achieving shorter turn-around times by being more customer-friendly, less bureaucratic and more accountable to the public.

A release from the ministry says Tufton requires agencies to constantly review their operations to reflect and determine "what we are doing right, what we are not doing right - just as the private sector organisation will do, just as the brand manager will do, to determine the quality of our brand."

Tufton's ministry is the only one with such a project. Bryan said that it is the prerogative of the individual ministries to implement their own service-improvement strategies.

business@gleanerjm.com