HAVING already spent $474 million over three years to lease buildings in Manchester and St Mary it is yet to occupy, Tax Administration Jamaica (TAJ) on Tuesday disclosed that it will have to spend an additional $1 billion-plus to get the buildings ready for use.

Responding to questions from Public Accounts Committee Chairman Julian Robinson, TAJ Commissioner General Ainsley Powell said the more than $1 billion is an estimate of how much it will take to retrofit the buildings in Annotto Bay, St Mary, and Greenvale in Manchester.

The Annotto Bay building is owned by a sitting Member of Parliament and was leased for $700,000 per month over the period, while the amount already spent to lease the Mandeville building was $360 million at the time the matter was made public in a special report of the Auditor General’s Department in late March.

On Tuesday, Powell told the Parliamentary committee that the lease, to date, on the Annotto Bay property was $23 million and a staggering $451 million for the Mandeville location.

Regarding Annotto Bay, Powell said, “We are at the point where we are going to start the process of putting the office in order for us to occupy which is estimated at roughly $30 million.”

The TAJ boss said the expected start date for the work is June 10, “and we expect it to be completed within four months”.

Powell explained that the work includes the installation of counters for the service areas and structured cabling to facilitate the ICT network.

He said TAJ anticipates that it will occupy the Annotto Bay building by the third quarter of this year.

Powell also told the PAC that the bidding process for retrofitting the Mandeville building will close today.

He said that a fair amount of work was done under contract by the landlord with elevators, bathrooms and flooring being installed.

“Finishing the work is going to be our main responsibility,” Powell said.

When asked by Robinson the estimated cost to get the building ready to offer taxpayer services, there was a lengthy pause before Powell said, “It will probably take us somewhere close to $1 billion.”

Appearing shocked, Robinson asked, “To what?” with Powell repeating “a billion”.

Repeating out loud “$1 billion to retrofit,” with an audible sigh, Robinson enquired as to when the space would be ready for occupancy.

“We’re looking at September 2025,” Powell said, while pointing out that the timeline is subject to the approval process.

After the disclosures, Robinson enquired whether a cost-benefit analysis was done to determine if it would have been better for the Government to construct its own building or come up with another alternative, given the sums already spent and the estimated cost to get the building ready.

Powell explained that TAJ had initially pursued the acquisition of property but was unable to find a suitable location within the confines of Mandeville.

He said the tax authority flirted with the idea of acquiring property on the outskirts of the town but that was shelved after it was determined that for some taxpayers it would mean double the transport cost for them to get to such a location.

“We didn’t find anything suitable, we also looked at other properties,” added Powell.

He said one property was located in proximity to a sinkhole which would have created a flooding problem, while the cost to develop a six-acre property would have been exorbitant. Two additional constraints were inadequate acreage and parking.

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