Tuesday, 30 November, 2010 – Kingston, Jamaica: Digicel today broke ground on its new “green” global headquarters on the waterfront in downtown Kingston.
With this bold move Digicel was making serious commitment to invest and would have had its Senior executive working from the office in Jamaica.
Most Jamaicans who know how things operate in Jamaica especially under a PNP government, knows that the PNP has a serious aversion to big business and money and in the 1990’s were responsibly to the biggest destruction of local and foreign owned business that this country has ever seen. We are told over 40,000 businesses were closed during the last PNP administration, demonstrating the inability of a PNP government to be business friendly.
In May 2012 the newly formed PNP administration continued where it left off and this was what screamed from the headlines of the major papers.
Digicel office raided by the Jamaican police with high powered weapons.
http://jamaica-gleaner.com/latest/article.php?id=37010
Digicel was NOT amused by the actions of the TAJ and vowed to ensure its good name was not being sullied by the agents of the PNP administration.
The terrible economic situation in Jamaica, the many debt swaps , rising crime and the inability of this large company to get the foreign exchange required to run it’s business has forced Digicel to reconsider its position in Jamaica and so commonsenseja was not surprised when the headlines from one of our leading newspaper screamed the following, which many Jamaicans obviously missed but not commonsenseja.
Digicel top execs moving to Dublin offices
Friday, July 12, 2013
FIVE managers from the Digicel Group will relocate from Jamaica to a new corporate office in Dublin, Ireland.
It is being reported in Ireland that Digicel will establish a corporate base in Dublin from where Group CEO Colm Delves, Chief Financial Officer Lawrence Hickey, Head of Investor relations Brian Devine, and a couple other senior members of the management team will oversee the group operations. In response to Caribbean Business Report queries, Digicel’s head of group public relations Antonia Graham confirmed the relocation of five managers “over the coming weeks”, but did not state their identities.
What this means is the newly constructed offices in downtown Kingston, which was once mooted as the Global Headquarters for Digicel will no longer hold that prestigious position, thanks to the PNP government.
This office will now be downgraded to the company’s regional offices, signally that within 18mths after taking office, the PNP government has mismanaged the economy so badly, that one of Jamaicans largest companies has taken the decision to take its senior managers out of the country and upgraded its Dublin Offices to the New Global Headquarters. This is not a move to sniff at and is a big as signal as one could get as to where Digicel head is at this point in time.
Now this move would have missed the attention of most Jamaicans who are not in position to link incidences and look at actions and intent, without be told explicitly what is taking place and this is where a blog like this comes in.
The PNP apologist, well tell you this is no big deal or will skillfully ensure that the majority of Jamaica are kept in the dark about cases like these, but as I indicated from the beginning, I refuse to walk the path laid out for me and will chart my own course to bring information to those willing to listen and they will in turn pass on that information to others and in so doing allow persons to form their own opinion on certain issues.
Digicel’s move therefore is very instructive and its actions over the coming months, will further telegraph its position.
Its not only they who are leaving the oppressive situation here in Jamaica, many Jamaicans are packing their bags and getting out of here before …….
Stay tuned.
Bless.
Warren's Blog 
but eitherway all of them directors never lived in jamaica either way. arent they all from ireland?
Continue being the ostrich and keep your head in the sand.
No. They lived in Jamaica. Some of them (I won’t say which) even acquired Jamaican citizenship and were married to Jamaican women.
I never missed that piece of news item Jay, just did not connect all the dots as you did, but you are quite right – they were very embarrassed by the raid which is what it had intended based on stories I heard long before.
And tell me about the massive silent migration going on now, including that of the former leader of the Senate… Business people will take their businesses and operate elsewhere. By the way Jay, have you been looking at the packages of these local companies? Some of the packages tell you the country outside of Jamaica where the products are manufactured and some just say manufactured for: When I buy these products, am I buying Jamaican?
If things continue, only the masses who would prefer to be hungry under the woman than have food to eat under the little man will be left – but that is love for you – BLIND!
I am glad you raised the point about Jamaican branded goods, so let’s explore that a bit.
Grace Kennedy is one of Jamaica’s largest local manufacturer and today , its major canning plant located close to majesty gardens off SpanishTown rd is a shadow of itself.
Very little Grace Branded products now take place at that plant, which runs about 4 days per week, doing stuff mainly for people like Lasco and other.
Now Lasco is opening a huge distribution facility out whitemarl, where it will do most of its own packaging, which means it could be soon lights out for Grace Canning Kingston.
Grace has a massive logistic warehouse in St Catherine, where most of the products are distributed from and you will note the label says ” packed for Grace, Harbour Street”.
The fact is its cheaper for Grace and others to have its products manufactured in Trinidad, Thailand and other countries rather than in Jamaica and so Jamaica will soon become a distribution hub vs doing manufacturing.
Its not even that the ingredients are going from here to the manufactures overseas, which would not be bad, but the fact is their are no local inputs.
So isn’t it disingenuous to ask us to buy Jamaican in order to ensure the employment of Jamaican workers and the viability of the manufacturing industries? They really not Jamaican products – only in name. SMH!
I made this point months ago, but it appears that some Companies are “sacred cows”. These are the same people we put on platforms to speak on addressing our challenges while they are part of the problem. Did anyone notice that the bottled water at the head table at the diaspora conference was imported?
I noticed this all the time. The Jamaican economy is mainly importer–>distributor–>wholesaler–>retailer. Enough is not being manufactured here and this dynamic will not augur well for us.
We? Manufacture? At 40 cents a kilowatt/hour? With no locals with proper education in Control Systems/Industrial Engineering, or Plant Managemnt? With no automation technology to overcome the cheap manufacturing in the East, or the skilled workers in Germany? The high building costs? The retarded taxes with no feed-in tariffs, tax rebates, or incentives? With CARICOM screwing us? Not a chance.
Jay:
Are you that dense or is it that you play someone that thickheaded on this blog? I’m inclined to believe the latter, since if it is the former, it is clear that you have taken leave of all your senses.
The article linked in your write-up clearly states:
The above hints at what is probably driving the relocation of these high level managers. There might also be an attempt to take advantage of the tax situation in Ireland, where a lot of large companies has posiotion their Corporate Headquarters for tax purposes.
Now, it is indeed a great stretch for you to conclude that the decision to move their Headquarters (on paper ) from Jamaica to Ireland is in retaliation for pass actions of the Jamaican (PNP) Government and/or that they are …”signally that within 18mths after taking office, the PNP government has mismanaged the economy so badly, that one of Jamaicans largest companies has taken the decision to take its senior managers out of the country and upgraded its Dublin Offices to the New Global Headquarters.
I have experienced personally, where companies move their Headquarters from one State to another, at the whims of the CEO, to take advantages of “packages” being offered by the winning State or the fact that the CEO wants to live and work in warmer climates. Such moves, allow the CEO’s entire relocation cost to be paid for by the Corporation, including the purchasing of a multimillion dollar homestead.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/100859478
I must hand it to you though, you surely have a vivid imagination that tends to cloud your reasoning abilities. This ultimately exposes the true passions behind the curtain of deceit, laying bare for all to see, that you sir, are indeed, a turd.
BTW Jay, on the subject of …many Jamaicans are packing their bags and getting out of here before ……, …..you boldly declared that you would have departed from Jamaica a weekend or two ago and that your bags were packed and you were ready to go. Have you left as yet? Given your unblemished track record of truthfulness, I have no reason to doubt the veracity of those declarations, so how is it in your new locale? 😀
Jay, the pnp has always been the party of anti- wealth creation. For example, the Revenue Administration Act is very important, because Jamaica must adopt international benchmarks. However, Dr.Davies stated that it is time for the rich to pay their fair share. His argument should not include such a view, but being a class warrior members of the pnp hierarchy often see the need to bash the rich for amassing wealth
Jay, I have the sneaky feeling that you picked up your “insight” into this matter from an article by Aubyn Hill in the Financial Gleaner on Friday last.
In any event, I hand it to Digicel for bringing robust competition to the telecoms market. However, I am now happy to be rid of their “extortionist” cross network charges.
I use my Digicel phone only for texting and my LIME phone for making calls, for $2.99/minute (billed per second), to any and all other networks!
I guess my your way of reasoning Digicel was liked by the JLP – perhaps you are right; after all, they got to buy out Claro under the JLP in an attempt to, in my opinion, reduce competition in the marketplace.
As one blogger stated in response to Aubyn”s Hill’s article, maybe the real reason Digicel has relocated is its inability to continue making a killing in Jamaica because of the recently announced reduced MTR (mobile termination rates)!
It would appear that Claro was not making head way in the market despite the robust promotions so they were anxious to offload. Question is why Lime did not purchase to boost their market share.
Digicel will always be making a profit because they can afford the type of promotion that allows them to. The profit margin might be a little smaller but Lime will never catch up with them, even when portability comes.
Many of us still remember the treatment from C & W in the 90’s when they were extorting us. I look forward to more competition and cheaper plans.
C&W extorted us in the 90s, therefore its ok for Digicel to extort us now??
So is the writer of this piece suggesting that the government should never have raided Digicel’s office to check about tax evasion? Or are u suggesting that they should have invited the Digicel’s execs to lunch and ask about possible tax evasion?