TransJamaicaN High-way, the developers of Highway 2000, says it has in fact, submitted an application to the Government for it to consider a toll increase in January.

Trevor Jackson, managing director of TransJamaican, told The Gleaner on Tuesday that the application was submitted in September, but that it was only put in as part of the company's concession agreement with the Government which allows it to apply for an increase every six months.

"It's ( the application) based on our entitlement in the contract," he said.

However, last week, during an interview with The Sunday Gleaner, Mr. Jackson failed to say that the company had submitted an application or was aggressively seeking an increase. He said only that any increase in toll charges would depend largely on the devaluation of the Jamaican dollar against its U.S. counterpart. Since July, the dollar has slipped by an average of about 70 cents against its U.S. dollar, moving from an average $66.01 to US$1.00 to $66.71 to US$1.00. Mr. Jackson said the Jamaican dollar would need to slip by at least $10 for an increase to be necessary.

"If the increases are too small then there is no need to increase the toll," Mr. Jackson said.

Small Increases

"It depends... We can't have small increases because of the change factor. So it depends really on how we run the numbers what its going to work out to, we can't be giving a toll figure of $62.32 it has to be $60 or $70 so toll collectors can deal with change," he had told The Sunday Gleaner.

Traffic flow has been below projection on Highway 2000. Mr. Jackson said consultants had assumed that, once the Portmore toll road opened, it would increase traffic flow along the highway by some 10 per cent. However,that did not happen.

"There were quite some aggressive assumptions made in the financial model for reasons best known to the consultants at the time, and I think that we will get there but we are not there yet," Jackson had told The Sunday Gleaner.

However, he said the traffic flow is increasing daily and should be within target in six months.