By Leonardo Blair, Staff Reporter 
EXTORTIONISTS ARE not only demanding money from contractors, but are targeting workers, including those on construction sites.
Nine months ago when John Stokes heard that a multimillion-dollar roadwork project was coming to Temple Hall, rural St. Andrew, he was happy.
But after gunmen killed three men in a dispute over the distribution of work along political lines in the community last Tuesday, he is now scared. He feels he could very well end up dead as "the big man" had started asking for 'taxes' out of his modest earnings on the roadwork project even before the killings.
If he could afford it, maybe John would have paid it, "but me can't afford fi pay him outta my likkle money," says John.
He has been resisting the demands for 'taxes' for a while but since the deaths last week, his resistance has been crumbling.
He cried as he spoke with The Sunday Gleaner last week.
"How them can expect me fi pay them out of my likkle money sar? We need some help from somewhere, this cannot continue and we want the work to start back as soon as possible because people have children to take care of. Send in the army, send in the police."
He had no idea that after paying his assistants out of a $40,000 sum every fortnight, he would have been expected to turn around and pay the 'big man' 'taxes' for being allowed to work.
"If I did know that this was how the work stay I would never have taken up the work," said John.
NOT ISOLATED CASE
Vando Palmer, manager of Communications and Customer Services at the National Works Agency, explained that John's situation is not an isolated case as information coming to the NWA from contractors indicate that construction and other workers paying "taxes" into the billion-dollar extortion industry is a common and accepted practice in many circles.
"If the contractor is able to carry external persons in the area to do work, the persons who come in from outside to work have to pay taxes," said Mr. Palmer. "This is not limited to NWA projects but right across the landscape, this thing is taking place. From gas station operators who have to pay to operate to persons who have to pay to operate their businesses. This is a very big business. This is almost like a feeding tree. It is well within 30-35 years old and there is going to be no easy solution to it because in many instances it is institutionalised.'
Everybody wants a solution to the extortion problem right now, says Mr. Palmer, but the situation looks very sticky and it will take everyone affected in society to bring an end to the costly scourge.
"It is all well and good that we say to the contractor 'shut down the work' and the contractor say he is not paying this money. But even if the contractor says he is not paying the money and you are working in certain areas, the people from that area cannot work. Because the don tells them not to work so even if you have the police and the army and they encapsulate the worksite. You still have a problem."
Like John, most of the Temple Hall community is living in fear. Many of the men have abandoned the roadwork project to lie low in the surrounding hills of the community, mobile police patrols drive by every now and then and everyone is hoping something good will come back to Temple Hall.
Name changed to protect identity.
