Mixed support for motion to tax funeral home operators towards maintenance of public cemeteries
FALMOUTH, Trelawny — President of Jamaica Association of Certified Embalmers and Funeral Directors Calvin Lyn is not fully in support of minority leader in the Trelawny Municipal Corporation, Councillor Garth Wilkinson’s motion for a tax to be levied on funeral home operators.
Speaking during the recent regular monthly meeting of the corporation, Wilkinson (Falmouth Division, People’’s National Party) explained that proceeds from the proposed fee would go towards the maintenance of the 18 public cemeteries in the parish.
But during an interview with Jamaica Observer Lyn argued that such a fee would not be necessary if the Public Health Funeral Establishment and Mortuary Operations Regulations had been approved by Cabinet as far back as four years ago. The Ministry of Health created guidelines for the operation of funeral establishments and mortuaries in August 2014.
“I, as president of this association, have been [asking] the Government since September 2017, coming seven years, to have the regulations that the Ministry of Health has on record — a draft of which was signed by then Minister of Health Dr Fenton Ferguson in August 2014. We from the association have had meetings with Minister of Health Dr Christopher Tufton and company. The information we received was that the regulation .... the draft one that they had amended, that soon the thing would be taken to Parliament to pass as law. That has not happened today as I speak to you,” Lyn said.
The director of Lyn’s Funeral Home, who is also a former Member of Parliament and councillor, explained that if the legislation had been approved, upon inspection the public health department in each parish would recommend suitable premises, then the funeral home operators would apply to the respective municipal corporations for licenses, at a cost.
“What they would do with that [fee] is not my business. So, what Wilkinson is saying has some merit. If the municipal corporations have money, they would know how to spend it to return the service to the taxpayer,” the former politician argued.
“That would have been factored in if the regulations were enforced four years ago, because the councils would be getting the fee before and they would know what to do,” he added.
For his part, funeral director Paul Patmore, a former independent councillor who recently stepped forward to represent the PNP in the Trelawny Southern constituency, has thrown his full support behind Wilkinson’s motion.
“It is something that I support a hundred per cent. That’s something that should have come along a long time ago. I have been calling for that since I was a councillor.
“So the struggles that the parish councils are going through to maintain the cemeteries across Jamaica, in just the Yellow Pages alone you’re looking at about 250 different funeral homes.
If there is a fee that can be used to maintain the cemeteries, a portion of that could also go to the hospitals to maintain the morgues also,” Patmore said.
Meanwhile, Lyn also argued that what Wilkinson should do is lobby the municipal corporations across the island to address the issue of illegal funeral home operators, which would rake in more revenue.
“The amount of qualified, trained funeral home people in Jamaica... if I use an estimate of 100 who are trained in mortuary science and certified by an accredited institution, vis-a-vis nearly a thousand of these fly-by-night funeral homes who just go and hook up... they have their store in Kingston, part of St Ann, part of St Catherine, part of Clarendon, part of Manchester, and say dem a funeral this and funeral that. If he [Wilkinson] as councillor can get his council to get support from the other councils and the Government to identify these fly-by-nights that outnumber us 10 to one, they will get more money — because me know as a fact that nuff of them, the bandooloo things dem a do as operators, dem nah pay a cent to Government,” Lyn argued.
The resolution moved by Wilkinson was seconded by Councillor Dunstan Harper (Sherwood Content Division, Jamaica Labour Party)