KINGSTON–The Ja­maica Man­u­fac­tur­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (JMA) has sought the in­ter­ven­tion of Prime Min­is­ter Por­tia Simp­son-Miller to help re­solve the on­go­ing trade dis­pute be­tween Ja­maica and T&T.JMA pres­i­dent Bri­an Pen­gel­ley said in a tele­vi­sion in­ter­view that lo­cal man­u­fac­tur­ers had asked Simp­son-Miller to con­vene a meet­ing that should al­so be at­tend­ed by her min­is­ters re­spon­si­ble for re­gion­al trade. He said this would fa­cil­i­tate an un­der­stand­ing of every­one's re­spec­tive roles, "what we can play, what should be the steps."

The JMA has called for the res­ig­na­tion of For­eign Af­fairs and For­eign Trade Min­is­ter AJ Nichol­son say­ing that state­ments he made had con­tra­dict­ed ear­li­er state­ments by In­dus­try, In­vest­ment and Com­merce Min­is­ter An­tho­ny Hyl­ton, who had promised to take the trade is­sues as far as the Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Jus­tice (CCJ).The CCJ, es­tab­lished in 2001 to re­place the Lon­don-based Privy Coun­cil as the re­gion's fi­nal court, al­so acts as an in­ter­na­tion­al tri­bunal in­ter­pret­ing the Re­vised Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas that gov­erns the 15-mem­ber re­gion­al group­ing.

"The con­fu­sion with­in the gov­ern­ment is un­ac­cept­able. One min­is­ter is say­ing one thing and an­oth­er min­is­ter some­thing else. What is re­al­ly the po­si­tion? Min­is­ter Nichol­son needs to start singing a dif­fer­ent tune, or step aside for some­one who is a team play­er, un­der­stands is­sues and ad­dress­es them rather than wish­ing them away," Pen­gel­ley said.Nichol­son told leg­is­la­tors last week that the par­lia­men­tary op­po­si­tion and oth­er crit­ics should end the bick­er­ing with T&T over claims of un­fair trade prac­tices. He said the pri­vate sec­tor should be fo­cus­ing on large mar­kets in­stead of com­plain­ing. (CMC)