Appeal court to rule on NTCS interim payment today

The Court of Appeal is today expected to rule if the government will have to make an interim payment to members of the National Transport Co-operative Society (NTCS).

Lawyers representing the NTCS had applied to the court seeking an order for the government to pay 20 per cent or about $400 million of the $2 billion award.

The NTSC is contending that its members are destitute and need an interim payment.

The government has opposed the application arguing that NTCS members have suffered no loss.

The government wants a stay of the award, as it heads back to the UK-based Privy Council to fight the amount awarded.

Last September, the court ruled that the Government should pay $1.8 billion plus interest at 3 per cent to the NTCS.

The interest cost which covers the period 2004 to 2011 pushes the total figure to just over $2 billion.

However, the government said the award should not have been calculated from 2004 but from 2009, when the Privy Council made the ruling.

The Government and the NTCS have been in the courts for almost a decade, since the decision to end the sub-franchise agreement with the state-owned Jamaica Urban Transit Company.

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