By Damion Mitchell, Staff Reporter 
Trucks at the Jamaica Pre-Mix quarry in Yallahs, St. Thomas, being loaded with sand yesterday for various destinations. - Ian Allen/Staff Photographer
CONSUMERS WILL have to dig deeper into their pockets to pay for aggregates, especially those mined in St. Thomas, should the Government go ahead with a proposal from St. Thomas stakeholders to impose a cess on commercial transport trucks.
"Naturally, consumers would have to pay more for aggregates, if they go ahead with this thing," Leroy Gooden, haulage contractor, told The Gleaner yesterday.
On Saturday, St. Thomas stakeholders suggested that a $1,000 cess be charged on commercial transport trucks, which would see the Government realising nearly $93 million, annually.
Director of Caribbean Aggregates Ltd. and managing director of Y.P. Seaton and Associates, York Seaton, believes that while the Government, "in its wisdom", could not support such a proposal, in the effect that it does, persons should expect spiralling construction costs. "Consumers now have to pay GCT on aggregates and if this cess should be imposed, then the (ultimate) cost would be enormous to the consumer," said Mr. Seaton.
IGNORANT OF OTHER COSTS
He also charged that the stakeholders who made the proposal were ignorant of the fact that mining quarry operators are required to pay over to the Government three and a half per cent of the revenues earned from each tonne of aggregates.
And while pointing to high maintenance costs and taxes incurred, Leroy Gooden said that a $1,000 cess on each trip of aggregates hauled from St. Thomas would send some operators out of business. "We have to pay for carriers license, special permit, registration, plus regular maintenance, so we really could not manage any thing more," he said.
State Minister in the Ministry of Transport and Works, Dr. Fenton Ferguson, at a press briefing on Saturday, strongly supported suggestions that the cess should go to the Dedicated Road Fund and be used for road work in St. Thomas.
But, Mark Roberts, haulage truck driver, said a better suggestion would be for the Government to impose a toll for using the new Yallahs bridge, when it is constructed. He said the proposed cess would just be another way for the Government to make more money, "because if we (haulage contractors, drivers) pay the cess, we'll still have bad roads".
