BUSINESS leaders are shortly expected to step-up the pressure to get government to reconsider imposing the street light cess by taking their fight to Parliament.

A wide cross-section of business leaders met in Ocho Rios yesterday to discuss the recent passage of the bill and proposed to stage a symbolic protest in Parliament to register their opposition.

The meeting was called by the St Ann Chamber of Commerce but was not confined to members of the island’s chambers, participants said.

Details of the form and date of the proposed action were sketchy last night, however business sources said that there was likely to be a follow-up meeting of representative groups to iron out the finer points of the plan.

Meanwhile, Anthony Chang, the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce (JCC) president, who was invited to sit in on the meeting, confirmed that a proposal was put forward to mount some form of “symbolic gesture”.

Chang’s JCC, at its board meeting on February 26, opposed the cess on grounds of “cost” and “principle”.

According to that organisation, the cess, which will require electricity consumers to pay a levy of 3.14 per cent of their light and power bill to meet the cost of street lights, was coming at an awkward time and had the potential to cripple industry, rendering them un-competitive. The government expects to raise about $540 million in the first year of the tax, which will be collected directly by the light and power company, Jamaica Public Service Company (JPSCo).

While the administration has insisted that the cess was the best way to ensure that not only the street light bill is paid but that the service is expanded, the JCC has argued that it will hurt the ability of Jamaican businesses to compete and that in any event, there was a moral hurdle that the Government needed to pass before it could impose the levy.

“There is a cost and a principle issue,” Chang reiterated yesterday. “The principle is that you are taxing people. And here we have all of this discussion about government waste and apparent government corruption. Secondly, we had a discussion with the finance minster who said there would be no new taxes.”

At yesterday’s Ocho Rios meeting, Chang said the business community endorsed the stance taken by the JCC and added their own proposals.

“They called the meeting and I attended. They voiced their concerns about it (the cess) and said they would like to take it one step further and show some level of protest about the cess. What they are proposing is that they make a symbolic gesture in Parliament in opposition to the cess,” he said.

The meeting also proposed that government rethink its current method, and calculation in regards to property taxes.

“They are concerned about property tax and the methods of calculation and a paper should come forward from the group on a proposed property tax reform,” Chang said.

Chambers represented at the meeting included Negril, St Ann, St Elizabeth, Trelawny, Manchester, Clarendon and St Catherine.