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Kara Kara toll booth has to be restored!
– Over $250M in revenue lost since rescinded — Basil Williams
By Enid Joaquin
Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Basil Williams, on Monday evening promised Lindeners that the Kara Kara toll booth that was disbanded by the previous administration will be restored. He was at the time addressing a rally at the Linden/ Georgetown bus park.
The Kara Kara toll booth
According to Williams, the municipality would have lost over $250 million in revenues, since the toll booth was disbanded.
Williams noted that the toll booth was disbanded just before BaiShanLin started trucking lumber and other materials through the mining town.
“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 used 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. And this man (Norman) Whittaker… he wake up overnight and he decided he cutting this thing.
All of a sudden now, the council had no money to pay increase wages to the workers.
As a result, a lot of the workers left the work, and the municipality couldn’t even pay for services. The time has come to put an end to these things.” Williams declared.
EMPOWERMENT
Williams promised that under the new system of local governance the people would be empowered. The municipality would have its own bank account and would be allowed to raise its own funds, and would be given subventions by central government.
“But most importantly what we have to do is restore that toll booth; we have to put that toll booth back in place!”
Williams pointed out that the toll booth started in 1997 -then by laws were signed by Whittaker in 2011. “Then all of a sudden, in 2013, he came and rescind it saying the regulations weren’t gazetted. He was the man to ensure that the regulations were gazetted and he did not, and he used that as an excuse to stop it just at the time that BaiShanLin had entered, so they had method in de madness!”
Williams drew attention to the heavy laden trucks that subsequently passed through the town freely, and the “erstwhile” revenues that were lost as a result.
He added that as soon as the LGE is complete the chief parliamentary counsel would be ready to present the regulations and have them gazetted so that “collections” could be resumed.
Williams exhorted Lindeners to go out and vote for the APNU/AFC on Friday March 18.
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