MONTEGO BAY, St James — A recent effort by the St James Municipal Corporation to collect more than $200 million in trade licensing fees showed just how unaware some business operators are of the legislations in place.

Mayor of Montego Bay Richard Vernon, who said he got several calls from people seeing to verify that the collection drive was legitimate, is convinced that this lack of knowledge is hampering the corporation’s efforts to collect billions of dollars in revenue.

“Recently we carried out some compliance exercises in the downtown area and persons called me personally to ask about it because they thought it was a scam. They did not know that they were supposed to pay trade licences,” he told the Jamaica Observer last Friday.

He was expanding on comments he had made earlier, during the opening ceremony for the Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce and Industry 2024 Expo.

“Particularly for the trade licences and the property taxes, there is a large room for improvement. Case in point, only 43 per cent of St James is property tax compliant, resulting in a deficit of $2.5 billion. And only 28 per cent of businesses are paying for their licences to operate in the space within the municipality, an additional deficit of over $200 million,” Vernon said in his address.

He told the
Observer that the local authority will, as a first step, make an effort to educate parish residents on why it is important for them to pay their taxes. Then more stringent measures will be implemented to collect the funds.

“I realised that we need to do more sensitisation; that is what we’re going to do. After we have completed the sensitisation process and consultation, my commitment to the people is that we will consult before we enforce,” the mayor promised.

Vernon said the expectation is that more revenue will be collected after the educational campaign but they are prepared to act if this does not happen.

“If we don’t get any compliance, then we will activate our enforcement mechanisms because we have to fill the gaps we’re having so that we can serve the municipality better. It is for the betterment of everybody,” he stressed.

Efforts have been made in the past to get the message out, especially as it relates to property taxes. Vernon also pointed out that the Government has reduced rates over time.

“It is cheaper than before and we are encouraging more people to participate in that collection because that is an important tax to deal with garbage collection, street lighting, road repairs,” he stated.

“To continuously maintain [parochial roads] and services we offer to the public to make people’s lives easier, they must be properly financed,” Vernon stressed.