Establish diaspora fund - Barnett

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR of the Financial Services Commission (FSC), Rohan Barnett, has proposed the creation of a diaspora development fund.

Barnett said the fund could be operated in a way that allowed investment to be managed by members of the diaspora community with the necessary expertise to identify areas that require the support of the diaspora, rather than being debt or equity investment.

He was giving his personal views at the fourth biennial Jamaican Diaspora Convention, which ended in Ocho Rios, St Ann, yesterday.

"If you are generating the necessary returns that justify that investment, the diaspora should have a vehicle that allows its resources, its capital and its expertise to be applied to better (help) you to provide jobs to increase productivity," he reasoned.

Barnett made the proposal even as he reiterated his objection to the proposed diaspora bond to fund educational projects in Jamaica.

He conceded that educational development was important to national development, but argued that it did not generate a stream of revenues that would allow the Government to service the repayment of the bond.

"Failing this revenue or income stream, what you wind up doing is increasing the debt stock of the Government without a way to offset it by generating income. I don't support that," he emphasised.