Golding, left, and Whiteman
Vernon Daley, Staff Reporter
AFTER A long, heated debate, the Senate yesterday approved legislation providing for a special airport levy on passengers, which comes into effect today.
Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Senators, led by Bruce Golding, however, raised several concerns about the Airports (Economic Regulation) (Expansion Fund) Order, which will make it compulsory for all passengers departing Jamaica at the two international airports to pay a US$5 levy.
The levy will be paid into an Airport Expansion Fund, which will be used for the development of the Norman Manley International Airport and the Donald Sangster International Airport.
Persons travelling after today, but who purchased tickets previously, will not be required to pay the fee. Children under two years; airline crew on duty; and in transit passengers are also exempted from the charge.
For Sangster, the fund will enable the financing of capital projects, which have been approved by Government and are entrenched in the concession agreement for the privatisation of that airport. The fees collected for Norman Manley, however, will be frozen until a programme of capital development has been approved for that facility.
This did not go down well with Senator Golding, who suggested that it was inappropriate to be charging passengers a fee at Norman Manley when a plan was not yet in place for dealing with the expansion of the airport.
"We don't know what capital programme is to come for Norman Manley. We don't know whether or not that capital programme will ever come. And when it does come, we don't know whether the nature and size of the capital programme will justify an equivalent fee that is being imposed at Sangster," Mr. Golding said.
He also queried aspects of the Airports (Economic Regulation) Act, which gave the Airports Authority the power to approve additional fees if the need arises.
Leader of Government Business, Senator Burchell Whiteman, in responding to Mr. Golding, said the expansion plan for the airport was currently being worked on and would be available in the next few months, "if not weeks."
Mr. Whiteman also defended the inclusion of a provision in the parent Act, giving the Airport Authority the power to approve new charges to passengers, if the need arises.
"It is true that the law provides that other fees might be imposed. But we can't predict what might happen. There might be another 9/11, which will require other kinds of intervention," he explained.
Airport improvement fees are well established internationally as a source of capital development for airports, and are charged by many airports in North America and the Caribbean and other parts of the world. The amount of US$5 compares with a charge per passenger of US$4.50 in the United States; US$3.21 to US$9.62 in Canada and US$9.62 and US$9.00 in Cuba and the Dominican Republic respectively.
An agreement has been reached with the International Air Transport Association for direct payments to be made from airline funds to the Government's account. The money must be paid over by the operator within 15 days, or interest charges will be incurred.
