Sixteen companies that the Kingston and St Andrew Corporation (KSAC) says owe billboard fees totalling over $75 million are likely to have their advertisements taken down today, Kingston mayor Desmond McKenzie said Friday.

McKenzie, who said that the KSAC desperately needed the funds to help to deliver services to the municipality, told the monthly council meeting that the list included at least four multi-national companies.

McKenzie said that the multi-national companies Burger King, Pepsi Cola, the Jamaica Public Service Company and Travellers Express/Moneygram had failed to live up to their obligations to the municipality.

He said that numerous letters had been written to all of the delinquent companies. “Councillors, we cannot allow the multi-national companies to starve us of the funds that are desperately needed,” McKenzie said.

“The same effort that is made to ensure that persons who are selling in the market and the market district pay their fees, is the same effort that is made to ensure that barbers and hairdressers and all the other small people pay their dues. The KSAC is making the same effort with these multi-national corporations and we will not bend one inch from that attitude.”

He said that many of the companies that owed the KSAC this large sum of money “are the same companies that call us and complain about the state of the roads and drains and streetlights. If we are able to collect these sums it would enable us to do a lot more than we are currently doing”, he argued.

The mayor, who alleged that Burger King has not been co-operating with the KSAC, warned that their billboards would be pinpointed for removal today. He said that although the company had not paid outstanding fees they had replaced the billboards that the KSAC removed last year.

“Burger King continues despite the fact that we took down some of their signs last year,” he told the meeting. “What they did was to replace those signs with new signs. Well, I have news for Burger King, as fast as we take them down and they put them back up, we will take them down again.”

When the Sunday Observer contacted Burger King, the marketing manager said that the company “has no comment to make”.

In the case of Pepsi Cola and Travellers Express/Moneygram, Mayor McKenzie told the council that he would write to their parent companies.

“I am writing today to Moneygram International and the parent company of Pepsi Cola, reporting them for being negligent to the municipality,” he said.

When Pepsi Cola was contacted, the telephone operator said that no one was available to make a comment.

Regarding the JPS, McKenzie said: “I am disappointed with the Jamaica Public Service Company because when your light bill is for $700, one day after it is due they come to disconnect the light. They owe the KSAC millions of dollars in revenue for advertising and I want that money. I would rather collect than disconnect the JPSCo,” the mayor said, playing on a slogan used by the light and power company.

On Friday, Winsome Callum, the JPS’s public relations director, said that the company would see that the KSAC is paid as quickly as possible “because it is really not our intention to have amounts owing to the local government authority”.

“We are going to be checking on the claim by the mayor and ensure that we pay whatever amount is outstanding in the shortest possible time,” Callum said.

Meanwhile, the mayor said that a municipal court was urgently needed to protect the interest of local government and to make “these people comply”.

He said that a number of other companies which owed the KSAC had paid up.

The delinquent companies, McKenzie said, also included Neal and Massey Jamaica Limited, Caledonia Outdoor Advertising Limited, Progressive Grocers, Facey Commodity and Hardware, Curbside Advertising, Bert’s Auto and Alex Imports.