THE EDITOR, Sir:ONE OF the expectations of the new highway systems is the opening up of the country. Suddenly May Pen is a suburb of the capital city, now it is only 20 minutes away - the same time it would take to go to Portmore in traffic, with vast potential for our development.
The prime minister's team is to be congratulated for the forward thinking and programme of ideas. However their approach to the financing of the cost of the roadway was the introduction of a toll road (best remembered in Jamaica as a Backra attempt to keep the freed slaves on the plantation and not supported by the black population then either).
The alternative approach has been a matter of concern, for development like progress comes at a price and the construction of the road is patently seen to be expensive and requires technical expertise and expensive machinery.
ALTERNATE METHODS
We are therefore fortunate that when the Matalon committee was given a mandate for the review of taxes, either inadvertently or otherwise, they suggested alternate methods of public financing and in that report were new methods of taxation.
The committee chaired by distinguished businessman Joseph Matalon was suitably experienced and competent and they had the appropriate staff to look at the implications of new or alternate taxation. They have shown that the government could raise $2.7 billion by imposing the standard GCT on the cost of motor vehicle fuels, inclusive of the present Special Consumption Tax that applies to these. This has the advantage of yielding substantial revenue in the short term; it also has the advantage of building some automatic growth into the tax on motor vehicle fuels, (read inflation and devaluation proof).
The point to be made is that like the North Coast highway, the so-called 'Toll Road' would be built by the French on behalf of the Jamaican people, and we would pay them for it with this money. We would all share in the cost of building and maintaining it and we would all benefit from it. What could be fairer than that?
One of the reasons why we may be reluctant to accept the gift of the railway development from the Chinese government is that if the railway is developed significantly, it will immediately mean that the government will have to face a penalty from the toll road developers. Having paid them for the construction, that factor would not arise and the Chinese could give us our railway and there would be no penalty for its development and best of all, NO TOLL FOR PORTMORE - the road is for all of us.
I am, etc.,
DR. JEPHTHAH FORD
