Who will be Jamaica’s next Minister of Technology ?

Kingston,Jamaica – Jamaica‘s general elections was held this Monday, September 3rd 2007. The final result showed that the Bruce Golding-led Jamaica Labour Party(JLP) will form the next government. So we in the Tech and Telecom industries now have to ask who will be the next Minister of Information and Technology,now that Phillip Paulwell no longer has di work. And if we are to be honest, there are many in the industry are not unhappy to see the back of him and here’s why.

Yes his tenure has overseen the deregulation of the telecom industry which finally after 50 years of wallowing in a monopoly environment, gave Jamaican consumers a choice of service providers and lower costs to continue to feed their need to talk, talk and talk and also to access the internet with speeds beyond dialup. Add to that, his ministry and government finally passed the eCommerce Bill after rolling it around their heads for a number of years. But those milestones have been somewhat overshadowed by the legacy of scandals such as:

1. NetServ the failed call centre project which cost the government and tax payers in excess of JA$6bn dollars.

2. The recent egg on the former Min Paulwell’s face in the run up to teh elections and that was the sale of the fourth cellular licence to Solutrea Ltd which went sour because of politicking and saw the company pulling out and taking with them just over JA$500m dollars with them.

So from the cluster of JLP talent that surrounds Prime Minister Elect Bruce Golding, who do we think will get the top job? And what do we want of him or her for the future of the industries?

Patio Sources whispered Karl Samuda for Ministry of Industry, Technology and Commerce. I personally was hoping for someone a tad younger like Christopher Tufton, Shahine Robinson, Andrew Holness.We checked more, been listening to your feedback and found that the most likely candidate for this position would be Clive Mullings.

If you know or want to suggest someone. Make a comment here.