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Interim Management Committee Chairman Orrin Gordon has said that the toll booth at Kara Kara is operating and will continue to operate and collect toll, despite the order by Government that the booth be ‘disbanded.’Emphasizing that Minister Norman Whittaker had approved the municipality’s 2013 budget, which included projections for the collection of toll from the Kara Kara Booth,Mookie Betts Red Sox Jersey, to facilitate a raise of pay for the Town’s municipal employees, Mr. Gordon, during a press conference, said that the implementation of the order would result in a deficit of some $15 to $20 mil in the Council’s income, thereby jeopardizing programmes and jobs,Jim Rice Red Sox Jersey, within the Municipality.The tolls include a $2000 charge for trucks transporting sawn lumber and $3000 for transporting logs,Pedro Martinez Red Sox Jersey, while 40ft container trucks and trucks transporting laterite and sand were charged $5000. Vending charges included $2800 for buses and $4000 for canter trucks.Gordon said that the Municipality has begun to pay increases to its weekly employees for about three weeks now, and was in the process of preparing to do the same for its monthly employees, who had already made representation for same, and which was approved by the Council.However, in order to do that, $1.8m more in revenues per month, was required.“So it means that if we needed to get $1.8m more, then we had to do some additional things to get that. The question was where we were going to get that money from? We agreed that one of the main sources to get that additional revenue would be the toll booth in Kara Kara, and that toll booth is expected to bring us an additional million dollars on top of what we normally get.”“Now once we get that we should be able- along with the other revenue sources- car parks, markets and so on- to make the additional money, to take care of workers emoluments; so we agreed on that.”He said that he subsequently received a call from Minister Whittaker, and had conversations with him, which hinged on the whole question of payments.“I did make mention to him that while as Minister you can make representation for payments to be made, you cannot go below payments that are above the minimum- those are decisions that have to be made by Council. And therefore if those decisions are to be made by Council, that is what we are here to discuss,” Gordon told the press conference.“He accepted, and we agreed and he said that he would get back to me, after I asked him to find 50% of the $1.8m for the next three months to pay workers’ salaries, and thereafter the Municipality would be able to take care of its business, because we were working very hard to do that.”Gordon said that the Minister did get back to him, and asked him to give him a couple of days, ‘to put himself in order’.However the call that he subsequently received from the Minister was to inform him that the by-law which was signed on September 1st 2011 ‘is void, unenforceable and improper’.That meant then that immediately the toll booth should be disbanded.”Gordon said that the toll booth has been in existence since 1997.A by-law was subsequently signed in September2011 by Minister Whittaker, after Minister Kellawan Lall took more than two years to make a decision on it and subsequently demitted office.According to Gordon, within three weeks of being in office, Minister Whittaker agreed and consented to the by-law as it relates to trucks passing through the Municipality.“Now in 2013, the cabinet is deciding that this thing is unenforceable and improper and illegal.”In alluding to the enforcement of tolls at the toll booth,Kosuke Fukudome Cubs Jersey, Gordon said collection has literally doubled since, and that several truckers, especially the lumber truckers who had been paying, expressed satisfaction that all the other trucks, carrying fuel,Cheap NFL Jerseys China, gold etc, that were not paying, were now being made to pay. “They felt that they were carrying the burden,” Gordon pointed out.He said that he was convinced that the decision to disband the toll booth had been made because a few persons with connections in high places did not want to pay the toll. “They don’t want to pay, so they’re going to call on whoever they have to call on, to remove the toll.”APNU Parliamentarian Vanessa Kissoon, was also shocked at the decision,Addison Russell Cubs Jersey, which she said if allowed to stand will result in several women losing their jobs, and consequently the ability to take care of their children.She too, viewed the move as political.Councilors Charles Sampson and Gordon Calendar have both condemned the order to have the toll booth disbanded. Sampson pointed out that the government is one that likes confrontation and that while “we don’t like confrontation, it sometimes become necessary, and we are accustomed to fighting for our rights.”Callender in reiterating much of what was said by Sampson, said that he was prepared ‘to mobilize’, if it becomes necessary, to fight against what he considers to be an injustice to the people of Linden, and in particular, the employees of the Municipality. (Enid Joaquin)