24-hour call centre to help with backlog at CAIPO
By Shamar Blunt
From November, local and foreign enterprises looking to do business in Barbados will have easier access to information through the Corporate Affairs and Intellectual Property Office (CAIPO), with the entity launching a new 24-hour call centre.
Minister of Energy and Business Development Senator Lisa Cummins made the disclosure as she addressed the opening day of the Barbados International Business Association (BIBA) Global Business Conference at the Hilton Barbados.
She stated that the mounting backlog of business inquiries and filings at CAIPO has long been a source of concern for government officials, and while the call centre is only a temporary solution, it is necessary.
“Cabinet has approved the establishment of a dedicated 24/7 call centre to be able to proactively and reactively respond to all of your needs. We have established a partnership with a private call centre that is going to be equipped to do a few things – deal with the backlog, your returns, annual returns, and filings. All of those things that are long outstanding, those have been approved to have a dedicated team, focusing exclusive attention on dealing with the backlog that is affecting all of you.
“That is meant to start in November, so we are on the cusp of attempting to wrestle that backlog to the ground once and for all,” she explained
Cummins also noted that the soon-to-be-launched platform will also have three tiers of service that will be structured to effectively answer any business inquiries that are made.
“We are equipping the call centre with three tiers of capability. Tier one must be answered to completion at the call centre level on that call; tier two the same thing. The only things that will be escalated up to the leadership of CAIPO would be tier three.
“Even for those things at the technical level, they must be resolved within a 48-hour period and no more…. What that means, is that the days of you spending and sending people to CAIPO to spend long hours standing in queues in the corridors of the Baobab Towers must come to an end,” the business development minister said.
She disclosed that there will also be a customer support service centre which will be launched shortly, to work in conjunction with the call centre to better meet the needs of clients.
“The centre is meant to be a 24/7 facility. After hours, it goes into a facility that goes online, or you would have a call centre that answers your calls between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m. That is how we have designed it because global business does not stop for anyone,” Cummins said.
“We are implementing these solutions as a short-term measure, and I say a short-term measure because they are meant to feed into the much broader agenda that your leadership of BIBA has been brought into, and we have shared with you for the creation of a completely transformed CAIPO.”
In keeping with the current administration’s vision of establishing Barbados as a more dominant player in the global arena, an electronic single window platform for businesses, similar to the ASYCUDA World system – the computerised customs management system that handles the majority of trade procedures entering the Bridgetown Port – will be developed soon.
“It is the responsibility, therefore, of a government, this government, my ministry, to ensure that equally for business, doing global business, that you are submitting your documentation on time. There must be a single window as we evolve into the future of our corporate registry that allows you to interface with every single government entity in one submission.”
Cummins also stated that, while no new specifics have been concluded, the outdated Companies Act will be revised in the near future to better meet the modern corporate climate.
Meanwhile, Jamar Arthur Selman, President of BIBA, The Association For Global Business, said that despite the challenging economic climate facing a number of sectors, local businesses must aim to remain adaptable and competitive within their spaces.
“Our goals have to be centred on expanding the product offering and services range to potential clients and registrants, bolstering our attractiveness as an overall business domicile, and moving towards hosting more businesses of substance here,” he told the gathering.
“It must be our objective to ensure that businesses find a modern, adaptable and facilitative environment in Barbados the likes of which we have never seen before. Ladies and Gentlemen, our aim as a favoured domicile must be to become the leading country to reside, conduct business, invest, and also relax, so that our value-added proposition to the world is second to none in the western hemisphere.”
