THE Kara Kara toll booth that was disbanded in 2013 by former Minister of Local Government Norman Whittaker will be restored soon after Linden’s newly-elected councillors have been sworn-in.Organizer for APNU+AFC, Sandra Adams, revealed to the Guyana Chronicle that re-establishment of the toll booth will be given priority as a means of garnering funds.

According to outgoing IMC Chairman Orin Gordon, the council was forced to run a municipality with limited resources as it stood as an independent body exclusively dependent on rates and taxes.

With the current tax rates, which have not been updated since 1976, the money accumulated could only have sufficed for 25% of the council’s expenses, according to Gordon.

He said the municipality has lost in excess of $250M as a result of the toll booth operation being halted; and as an autonomous body, the toll booth has to be gazetted for the new council to progress.

Minister of Legal Affairs and Attorney-General Basil Williams, during his recent visit to the mining town, disclosed that the municipality will be given subventions by the government, but the toll booth should be reinstituted at the earliest.

He disclosed also that the toll booth was enacted in 1997, but, in 2013, Minister Whittaker disbanded the booth under the pretext that it wasn’t gazetted.
“He was to gazette it and he did not, and he used it as an excuse to stop it just at the time that Bai Shan Lin entered,” the Minister of Legal Affairs said.

He concurred with the disclosure of the former IMC chairman that over $250M had been lost as a result of the concessions given to Bai Shan Lin to have their lumber trucks transport their products.

“Over $250M was lost, which would have been earned because of the many heavily laden trucks passing through Kara Kara. They did not want you to be enriched and empowered,” he told the people of Linden.

As a result of this loss, the council was unable to pay increased wages to workers, which caused many to leave, and the municipality could not pay for basic services.

“They never wanted you to strive. They took away all of your financial abilities to spend money to look after yourselves. You used to take fees from those large trucks passing through Linden, the heavy lumber trucks and the bauxite container trucks, and you use to get a reasonable income from that as a Town Council. Thirty-five percent of those revenues constituted your budget in this town of Linden,” Minister Basil Williams said.

Minister Williams said that immediately after the new council has been put in place, the regulations will be presented to parliament and the toll booth will be gazetted so that collections will commence. He also said that the municipality will have its own bank account.
(Vanessa Braithwaite)