TAX Administration Jamaica (TAJ) on Wednesday explained that the building in Mandeville where it is establishing a new revenue service centre (RSC) is owned by Scojampen Limited, the Bank of Nova Scotia pension fund, and that it is being acquired under a lease that will cost the country less than what is currently being paid per square foot in the town.

“The lease is for 24 years with an option to renew,” TAJ said in a news release, adding that the new location will serve Manchester, Clarendon, and St Elizabeth.

The tax authority issued the release after its Commissioner General Ainsley Powell told Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee on Tuesday that more than $1 billion is being spent to retrofit buildings in Annotto Bay, St Mary, and Manchester to accommodate new RSCs.

“Given the growth in the volume of transactions at the tax offices that serve Mandeville and surrounding communities it is necessary to engage in a comprehensive upgrade in order to better serve the public,” TAJ said.

“With over 250,000 payment transactions plus other services yearly, the customer experience at the existing locations in Mandeville is restricted to standing room only inside the tax office with customers sometimes having to wait outside, seated under tents and exposed to the elements. Hence, the need to replace the tax office with a full-service revenue service centre similar to the revenue service centre at Constant Spring in St Andrew, with adequate waiting areas inside and sufficient parking space outside,” TAJ added.

The authority said that currently it is serving the taxpayer population in that section of the island from two locations, which significantly reduces its output to members of the surrounding communities.

“These retrofitting measures include upgrade to the facilities, environmentally sound considerations and digital capacities required of a modern-day tax facility. On completion, the new revenue service centre in Mandeville will replace two tax locations at South Race Course and Caledonia Avenue,” TAJ explained.

To achieve this, TAJ said it needed “a large enough land space that was close to the centre of Mandeville. After an exhaustive search, the best option available to the TAJ was to enter into a long-term lease of a property on approximately one acre of land, which allows the TAJ to build what will be the third-largest revenue service centre in Jamaica”.

It said that the property was previously used as a MegaMart outlet and is subleased from Cost Club Limited, the developers of the overall development in which the new RSC will be situated and which includes other commercial enterprises.

The tax authority also pointed out that the Government procurement process requires a signed lease for property before commencing the procurement to engage technical and contracting services for works.

“The procurement process for renovating the space of the size leased for the RSC operations requires Cabinet’s approval and a consultant to manage the project. It therefore means two separate procurement processes — one for the consultant, and another for the build-out contractor — which cumulatively can take up to 14 months for completion. In addition to the lengthy time frame for the process, the procurement for the building contractor failed on the basis that four additional contractors in the category, which responded to TAJ’s invitation for bids, were added to the procurement platform after the expression of interest phase but before the date for return of bids in August 2, 2023,” TAJ said.