Paying more at Barbados new spanking airport
By Rickey Singh
Guyana Chronicle
February 10, 2007
BRIDGETOWN -- Welcome to the new ultra-modern Grantley Adams International Airport (GAIA Inc).
Its ceremonial opening in this year of expected general election awaits some final touches for desired excellence of what easily stands as one of Barbados' most high profile infrastructure development projects in a welcome changing landscape.
Welcome, also, to the airport where the new departure tax of BDS$60 (US$30), is now the highest in the entire Caribbean Community -- over 100 per cent effective from February 1.The new US$1 per hour fee for using the airport's car park, itself a 100 per cent increase, may also be among the highest, if not the highest within CARICOM.
The new airport project has come with a price tag of BDS$142 million (US$71 million) -- after some cost-overruns. In the eyes of the beholder, familiar with regional airport facilities, it remains debatable if Grantley Adams now compares more favourably with Trinidad and Tobago's very impressive, more spacious Piarco International.
That airport was inaugurated in 2001 at a cost of some US$167 million amid controversy that still rages over claims of deep corruption in the awarding of contracts.
Ask a Trini, irrespective of political affinity or ethnicity, and you get a quick response of Piarco being the "number one", or "the best" among new or substantially restructured airports within CARICOM that would include Guyana and those in Jamaica. Ask a Bajan, and the unhesitating nod goes for Grantley Adams International.
Call it national pride, patriotism or whatever, a fundamental difference is that the Trinidad and Tobago authorities had to quickly give up on the idea of increasing the airport departure tax from TT$100 (or US$17) with the wide ranging facilities and improved services provided at the new Piarco airport. Here in Barbados, GAIA Inc. has speedily moved to implement its new US$30 tax.
As in the case of Piarco International, the airport departure tax for the old Grantley Adams went into the government's consolidated fund. Now, managed by the incorporated entity GAIA Inc, the departure tax is styled "passenger service charge" and no longer goes into the consolidated fund, except for the security component payable to the government.
Question of relevance is the rationale for the more than 100 per cent hike which is far above what obtains in other CARICOM jurisdictions where significantly improved facilities and services have also been introduced.
Further, the free ride of no departure tax for children below ten years is over. Now the "passenger service charge" is applicable to ALL travellers, except children under two years.
Taken together, this would represent a significantly increased cost for a holiday for even small families of three or four -- Barbadian or else -- from Grantley Adams. I guess the explanation would be better facilities and services often come at a high cost. But, over 100 per cent more, at the same location?
Pity that for all the platitudes about "one Community for one people" and a "single economic space", CARICOM is yet to harmonise, 33 years after its inauguration, the variations in requirements at ports of entry and departure for nationals and foreigners.
Glaring examples are the ED (entry and departure) forms for immigration and the arrival and departure taxes.
This is a regional problem that requires serious consideration in the quest to make a "lived reality" of one Community, one People, one Economic space!