Seaga and Bertram
JAMAICA LABOUR Party (JLP) members walked out of the House of Representatives in protest last night after a Bill to amend the Electric Lighting Act imposing a cess on customers of the Jamaica Public Service Company was passed.
The Bill is to secure the levying of a 3.14 per cent cess on JPSCo customers to finance the $500 million needed each year to maintain 76,199 street lights and provide 7,600 new ones. Energy and Mining Minister Anthony Hylton piloted the Bill.
Twenty government Ministers voted in favour of the Bill while eight JLP MPs voted against. People's National Party Member of Parliament for St. Andrew South Eastern, Easton Douglas, abstained after arguing against its passage.
The Minister of Local Government and Community Development, Arnold Bertram, under whose portfolio street lighting falls, said the National Water Commission (NWC) and the National Irrigation Commission (NIC) would be exempted from paying the cess to prevent an increase in their customers' water bills.
According to the Minister, each of the 442,000 householders in the rate 10 category, would be asked to pay $1.25 daily, for $37.50 monthly cess. Mr. Bertram said the cess would not be used to pay the present bill of $565 million which the Government owes the JPSCo for street lighting but that the Ministry of Finance would settle the debt through other means.
Meanwhile, in piloting the Bill, now called the Electric Lighting (Amend-ment) Act, Mr. Hylton said the Government had taken note of concerns raised by the Jamaica Manufac-turers' Assocation (JMA) and the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce (JCC) regarding the prohibitive electricity bills facing the productive sector. He said, however, that the Govern-ment was considering an action plan to bring low-cost energy to Jamaica which, he said, he would announce shortly.
For their part, the JLP MPs, led by Opposition Leader Edward Seaga, walked out of the House exactly at 7:20 p.m. after the Bill was passed. The walk-out followed strong denunciation of the cess from JLP MPs who supported Mr. Douglas' contribution to the debate.
He had argued that the implementation of the cess could lead to lay-offs and other social problems.
Referring to the plan to increase property taxes, Mr. Bertram said about $600 million was to be collected this year including about $200 million in arrears. The Local Government Minister reiterated that revenue collected from property tax was not enough to fund the Government's new street lights programme. The cost of solid waste management ate up a significant chunk of property tax revenues, he said.
"At the present time, the service is limited to the collection of domestic waste which leaves commercial and industrial sectors to finance their own waste disposal," he said. "The additional revenues will allow the service to include the collection and disposal of commercial garbage as well."
