Budgetary Support of $268Mn for JBI

• The House of Representatives has approved the withdrawal of $268.48Mn from the Capital Development Fund (CDF), to provide budgetary support to the Jamaica Bauxite Institute (JBI) for the 2022/23 financial year. Total budgetary support for the CDF is expected to cover approximately 73% ($268.48Mn) of the JBI’s operating expenditure of $367Mn.
• The Minister of Finance and the Public Service, Dr. the Hon. Nigel Clarke, said the JBI was established by the Government in 1975 as a regulatory planning and development agency, to manage the sovereign aspects of the Government’s participation in the bauxite-alumina industry.
• The JBI is responsible for monitoring and studying the alumina industry and advising the Government on matters pertaining to the industry, locally and internationally. The organization is said to be primarily funded from levies on the bauxite industry through the CDF.
• The JBI’s primary operations are not revenue-generated activities. However, over the years the JBI has expanded its operations to include the provision of laboratory services on a commercial basis to generate some revenue.
• The Minister said the JBI has been granted budgetary support totaling $1.2Bn from the CDF during the five-year period 2017/18 to 2021/22. The balance in the CDF as at the end of the 2021/22 fiscal year was $3.8Bn, which is adequate to provide the support required for the JBI in 2022/23.

(Source: JIS News)