Portmore Boycott...

[niceniss]

Re: Portmore Boycott...

[ QUOTE ]
did the taxes pay to build? did they address maintenance of the road once it was built? there's a difference.



[/ QUOTE ]

the taxes and special funds both paid for the building and maintenance of the bridge.

Re your other comments; like u acknowleged, u are speaking from an immensely detached perspective with very limited knowlege surrounding the situation.

[Hush Darlin]

Re: Portmore Boycott...

tsk tsk tsk tsk
aye sah

[mountaingal]

Re: Portmore Boycott...

sometimes detachment (not necessarily mine) helps with truly assessing a situation, and seeing what opportunities or alternatives that may be there, but unseen because they are clouded by emotion.

[Antykryse]

Re: Portmore Boycott...

Reading...

[Pepper]

Re: Portmore Boycott...

Look from when Q start this thread, all now him nuh reach back...him mussi still pon Mandela hwy stuck in traffic. [img]/forums/images/graemlins/70402-thinking.gif[/img]

[Tuff Gong]

Re: Portmore Boycott...

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]


quibbling over side points is not something I'm particularly interested in doing. However, it seem to me that you see absolutely nothing wrong with the imposition of tolls on a TAXPAID road.
as if what the people paid meant nothing and the causeway was the govt's to do whatever it pleased.

Interesting, but then you commented that nothing wrong with the people suffering like new yorkers do (equating a mountain with a molehill) [img]/forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

Me just ask yuh a question about your thought process. Call it quibbling if you like....just part of the course of discussion.

The people in Portmore are not special in any regards when it comes to being charged a toll. People all over the world, NYC, Canada, Singapore, UK, etc, pay property taxes and then turn around and pay tolls. People all over the world have daily struggles in life. If yuh live a Portmore, or Damascus, yuh gwine face tough times. And anybody who lives in a society with a government lives with the risk that one day a fee, a tax, or a toll may be imposed by said gov't. That is the reality of the world we live in.

Right now, is Portmore time fi deal wid it. Tomorrow will be someone else. People of Portmore nuh exempt from struggle. If dem nuh like what the Gov't do, thankfully they have the ability to vote out those who imposed the toll.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
It seems to me that if in 2002 they were forseeing a $45J toll, then the $60J being charged now, accounting for devaluation, is in line - did ppl think the the original proposed rate was too high?

it's quite common for governments to strike deals with foreign companies for major infrastucture. there's a huge commotion now because in toronto, the city council decided NOT to entertain bids from a german company (which kind of makes my point in a backwards way). the bottom line is the trade-off in terms of which will cost taxpayers less.

does the government of jamaica or any jamaican company indeed have the money/project management skills to undertake big budget infrastructure? isn't it a common complaint that the government is incompetent in these areas?

as to the competing commuter thing, i think in the article i interpret some room for the government to create a rail service, as long as its not high-speed, but i'll wait for tuff gong's post later with specific references from the contract.

as i read this thread, i remember portmore's efforts to be considered a municipality, and all the local infrastructure trappings that entails, i find it a tad ironic that some protests are hanging on the idea of portmore as a bedroom community. if i were mayor, i'd use the toll road and what it implies to lobby instead for more locally situated main services, and more jobs in portmore. it really should not be that simply to go a road you have to drive to another municipality - life in portmore should involve spending time in portmore.

just my thoughts from 3,000 miles away from the situation and emotion. [img]/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

I want to answer a certain question raised in both these posts.
It is the argument that countries all over the world are doing this.

This is a very foolish, dishonest and spineless argument.
For one thing the GOJ did not have wide consultations with the people of Jamaica. Most of what were called consultations amounted to talks with small focus groups of yes men and two meeting that noisemakers such as TI/Farqh Institute/JFJ forced the GOJ into. At those meetings the reps of the developers and GOJ kept most of the details well hidden and painted a rosy picture of life after the new highways.

Another thing, there is tons of available information, including a recent World Bank Study that pointed to the fact that these Boondoggle projects are surest way to facilitate and mask corruption.

The HWay projects have led to massive overruns and fraud in Jamaica. Is that normal all over the world?
If this is so is that the example we want to follow?
The model of the local Hway has seen the GOJ giving foreigners’ road that Jamaica have borrowed huge sums of money to construct. Is this what is taking place all over the world. Should we accept that in Jamaica?

The toll to the Highway is tied in at least three ways to the USA Inflation Rate, really is this what happens all over the world?
Is this the matter we want to follow?

Imprisoning a Bedroom Community to collect Tolls, it that normal all over the world?

[niceniss]

Re: Portmore Boycott...

[ QUOTE ]
sometimes detachment (not necessarily mine) helps with truly assessing a situation, and seeing what opportunities or alternatives that may be there, but unseen because they are clouded by emotion.

[/ QUOTE ]

<u>sometimes</u> being the operative word here. detachment married with knowledge of the situation and the capacity of seeing things from another perspective (the resident's, since it is easier to see from the govt's as they may mirror actions u are familiar with) is much more worthwhile, from where I'm sitting.

[niceniss]

Re: Portmore Boycott...

[ QUOTE ]
Look from when Q start this thread, all now him nuh reach back...him mussi still pon Mandela hwy stuck in traffic. [img]/forums/images/graemlins/70402-thinking.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

call him cell.

[Pepper]

Re: Portmore Boycott...

No argument on corruption, no argument on fraud. But Jamaica does not corner the market on such activities.

Please note, I never said I agreed with the way things were done. Surely it could have been done differently. I just don't have a problem with people being charged a toll. Pay the toll, drive pon good road, reach fast.

Which eeidiat gov't would put a toll on the long route wid di ole road?

[Tuff Gong]

Re: Portmore Boycott...

[ QUOTE ]
No argument on corruption, no argument on fraud. But Jamaica does not corner the market on such activities.

Please note, I never said I agreed with the way things were done. Surely it could have been done differently. I just don't have a problem with people being charged a toll. Pay the toll, drive pon good road, reach fast.

Which eeidiat gov't would put a toll on the long route wid di ole road?

[/ QUOTE ]

We are not talking about a sterile situation. This is unprecedented. It must be the highest toll in the world. No real consultations and a virtual imprisonment of the inhabitants of a city.
Not only that stipulations that makes it impossible to improve or construct any alternatives.
If this was so good for Jamaicans why did they not come upfront with the whole pan a fish?

Again you come with another dubious argument about corruption all over the world.... oh we are rich we can afford it.

The first leg of this boondoggle was 80% over run. The taxpayer is paying all kinds of way.

[niceniss]

Re: Portmore Boycott...

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]


quibbling over side points is not something I'm particularly interested in doing. However, it seem to me that you see absolutely nothing wrong with the imposition of tolls on a TAXPAID road.
as if what the people paid meant nothing and the causeway was the govt's to do whatever it pleased.

Interesting, but then you commented that nothing wrong with the people suffering like new yorkers do (equating a mountain with a molehill) [img]/forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

Me just ask yuh a question about your thought process. Call it quibbling if you like....just part of the course of discussion.

The people in Portmore are not special in any regards when it comes to being charged a toll. People all over the world, NYC, Canada, Singapore, UK, etc, pay property taxes and then turn around and pay tolls. People all over the world have daily struggles in life. If yuh live a Portmore, or Damascus, yuh gwine face tough times. And anybody who lives in a society with a government lives with the risk that one day a fee, a tax, or a toll may be imposed by said gov't. That is the reality of the world we live in.

Right now, is Portmore time fi deal wid it. Tomorrow will be someone else. People of Portmore nuh exempt from struggle. If dem nuh like what the Gov't do, thankfully they have the ability to vote out those who imposed the toll.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
It seems to me that if in 2002 they were forseeing a $45J toll, then the $60J being charged now, accounting for devaluation, is in line - did ppl think the the original proposed rate was too high?

it's quite common for governments to strike deals with foreign companies for major infrastucture. there's a huge commotion now because in toronto, the city council decided NOT to entertain bids from a german company (which kind of makes my point in a backwards way). the bottom line is the trade-off in terms of which will cost taxpayers less.

does the government of jamaica or any jamaican company indeed have the money/project management skills to undertake big budget infrastructure? isn't it a common complaint that the government is incompetent in these areas?

as to the competing commuter thing, i think in the article i interpret some room for the government to create a rail service, as long as its not high-speed, but i'll wait for tuff gong's post later with specific references from the contract.

as i read this thread, i remember portmore's efforts to be considered a municipality, and all the local infrastructure trappings that entails, i find it a tad ironic that some protests are hanging on the idea of portmore as a bedroom community. if i were mayor, i'd use the toll road and what it implies to lobby instead for more locally situated main services, and more jobs in portmore. it really should not be that simply to go a road you have to drive to another municipality - life in portmore should involve spending time in portmore.

just my thoughts from 3,000 miles away from the situation and emotion. [img]/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

I want to answer a certain question raised in both these posts.
It is the argument that countries all over the world are doing this.

This is a very foolish, dishonest and spineless argument.
For one thing the GOJ did not have wide consultations with the people of Jamaica. Most of what were called consultations amounted to talks with small focus groups of yes men and two meeting that noisemakers such as TI/Farqh Institute/JFJ forced the GOJ into. At those meetings the reps of the developers and GOJ kept most of the details well hidden and painted a rosy picture of life after the new highways.

Another thing, there is tons of available information, including a recent World Bank Study that pointed to the fact that these Boondoggle projects are surest way to facilitate and mask corruption.

The HWay projects have led to massive overruns and fraud in Jamaica. Is that normal all over the world?
If this is so is that the example we want to follow?
The model of the local Hway has seen the GOJ giving foreigners’ road that Jamaica have borrowed huge sums of money to construct. Is this what is taking place all over the world. Should we accept that in Jamaica?

The toll to the Highway is tied in at least three ways to the USA Inflation Rate, really is this what happens all over the world?
Is this the matter we want to follow?

Imprisoning a Bedroom Community to collect Tolls, it that normal all over the world?

[/ QUOTE ]



Aaahh! funny, funny. One of the things that strikes me re this "It's happening all over the world" argument is that they all failed to mention that the toll roads were all new roads BUILT specifically for toll purposes as opposed to taken over.

[mountaingal]

Re: Portmore Boycott...

[ QUOTE ]
I want to answer a certain question raised in both these posts.
It is the argument that countries all over the world are doing this.

This is a very foolish, dishonest and spineless argument.
For one thing the GOJ did not have wide consultations with the people of Jamaica. Most of what were called consultations amounted to talks with small focus groups of yes men and two meeting that noisemakers such as TI/Farqh Institute/JFJ forced the GOJ into. At those meetings the reps of the developers and GOJ kept most of the details well hidden and painted a rosy picture of life after the new highways.

Another thing, there is tons of available information, including a recent World Bank Study that pointed to the fact that these Boondoggle projects are surest way to facilitate and mask corruption.

The HWay projects have led to massive overruns and fraud in Jamaica. Is that normal all over the world?
If this is so is that the example we want to follow?
The model of the local Hway has seen the GOJ giving foreigners’ road that Jamaica have borrowed huge sums of money to construct. Is this what is taking place all over the world. Should we accept that in Jamaica?

The toll to the Highway is tied in at least three ways to the USA Inflation Rate, really is this what happens all over the world?
Is this the matter we want to follow?

Imprisoning a Bedroom Community to collect Tolls, it that normal all over the world?

[/ QUOTE ]
you're overextrapolating a tad. my comment about other countries also using foreign companies for major projects was in answer to the issue that it was somehow out of the ordinary for the Jcan govt to decide to do so. it's not.

of course, you may have a point that the resulting process around the decision sucked. but the choice to have a foreign company do this is a separate thing.

[Butsiyah]

Re: Portmore Boycott...

my earlier post got screwed up , don't know what happenrd to my'puter.

Question: Let's say the government decides to roll back the toll to the $30 dollars that the people are demanding...who pays for the shortfall? I understand the frustration of the residents of Portmore but I haven't heard what the alternatives are. Will someone educate me please? [img]/forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[niceniss]

Re: Portmore Boycott...

so you're speaking in complete abstraction, I take it? [img]/forums/images/graemlins/70456-eyebrows.gif[/img]

[niceniss]

Re: Portmore Boycott...

[ QUOTE ]
my earlier post got screwed up , don't know what happenrd to my'puter.

Question: Let's say the government decides to roll back the toll to the $30 dollars that the people are demanding...who pays for the shortfall? I understand the frustration of the residents of Portmore but I haven't heard what the alternatives are. Will someone educate me please? [img]/forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

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shortfall? what about noone using it. period?