by Linda Straker
- Licence will be calculated on number of vehicles imported
- Vehicle licence fee to be increased by $50 across all vehicle types
- Government will review reducing age categories for D-Class licences
The Government will apply a new system to tabulate the fee for business people categorised as vehicle dealers. The licence will be calculated on the number of vehicles imported, and not an annual fee.
“Vehicle dealership licence fee will be amended as follows: $10,000 per year or $1,000 per vehicle,” Finance Minister Dennis Cornwall told a sitting of the Lower House on Monday, 4 December 2023.
“The problem that this policy seeks to address is the disparity in treatment between the licenced dealers and non-licenced dealers, as well as addressing the concern where a small, licenced dealer will be required to pay $10,000 per year, if he imports 2 vehicles compared to a large dealer requiring to pay the same amount for 40 vehicles per year,” he said, justifying the new format.
Cornwall, presenting the 2024 Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure at the time, said there will also be changes to the vehicle licence fee. “Vehicle licence fee to be increased by $50 across all vehicle types to support improved road maintenance,” said Cornwall who was delivering his first Budget statement since he became Finance Minister in April 2023.
“Mr Speaker, the number of vehicles on our nation’s roads has increased significantly in the last 10 years, necessitating increased cost of road maintenance. The revenues collected from this policy, roughly $2.6 million, will go towards supporting road maintenance,” he said. The Royal Grenada Police Force (RGPF) recently disclosed 60,000 registered vehicles in its systems.
Cornwall also announced that the Government will conduct a review of the current driver’s licencing framework, including reducing the age categories for D-Class licences and facilitating the provision of training for drivers of heavy equipment and trucks.
“This policy seeks to address bottlenecks in the construction and agriculture sectors where machine operators and young farmers, who are in the most fruitful years of their life between 18 and 25 years of age, are legally barred from operating certain vehicles and heavy equipment, creating unnecessary labour shortages.” He promised the policy should be implemented by the first quarter of 2024.
Drivers with a minimum of 5 years of driving experience will become eligible for a non-exam-based upgrade. “This policy will provide opportunities for skilled and experienced drivers to pay to upgrade their licence to drive a higher class of vehicle without having to do an exam. While not the main objective, this policy is also expected to generate some additional revenues,” Cornwall told the House when he presented the EC$1,656,356,499 budget.
We are becoming a taxed based economy. Every measure is designed to extract revenue from the lowest earning demographic and restrict free enterprise.
No this right here in in full support.
However you can have 5 years of being a license driver and have 3 years driving experience so we still nees to be careful with tgis pay to upgrade.
As I said im in full support