Warning! If the Department of Infrastructure has its wicked way, it will off-load even more of its obligations to discharge its duties and responsibilities under its listed functions!

Under Chris Thomas’s new ‘Maintenance Charter’ once again our government, or should I say our ‘out-of-control DoI’, is intending to pass the buck onto the Manx public.

This time Chris wants the Manx ratepayers to ‘stump up even more cash’ to pay for the maintenance of the island’s highways, even though ratepayers are already paying for the maintenance of the highways in their areas and have been doing so since 2014 when Phil Gawne duped them into accepting responsibility for maintaining their highway areas under his now infamous ‘no-brainer’ delegations to them of his highway maintenance functions.

Under Chris’s Maintenance Charter he now wants local authorities to take on board even more responsibility for the maintenance of the highways in their areas which means further additional costs to be paid for by the ratepayers.

Hopefully, local authorities will not see this as a ‘no-brainer’ and will see it for what it is – a stealth tax on ratepayers.

But ratepayers aren’t the only people who use the highways. They’re used by everyone, so surely the ‘user pays’ principle should apply.

And, remember, folks, people who own and drive motor vehicles have already paid the DoI to maintain the highways through the exorbitant vehicle road tax duty that we have to pay on this island.

It appears, however, that our DoI gurus and their minister think it’s OK to now pass the buck onto the Manx ratepayers to cough up once again by paying to carry out even more ‘highway maintenance’ . What planet are these jokers on? They really do crack me up at times!

The idiom ‘the straw that broke the camel’s back’ springs to mind.

I would strongly advise all of our local authorities to stand up for the Manx ratepayers and tell the DoI to very politely go and ******** (you can fill in the missing words with the appropriate words of your choice).

I would like to ask this government and our out-of-control DoI: are the Manx Government here to serve the Manx people or are the Manx people here to serve this Manx Government?

Where does this government think the extra money is coming from?

Where do our hard-pressed Manx people find even more cash to pay for more stealth taxes?

May I suggest that our government needs to try just a little bit harder and get their own house in order.

They must stop burning through our dwindling reserves to prop up their out-of-control overspending, and can they please cut out the inefficient unaccountable dead wood within government departments?

They must stop this ever-increasing habit of loading more and more costs onto the general public before some of us are forced to give up and throw in the towel.

Alf Caine

Strang Road

Braddan

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This letter was first published in the Manx Independent of April 20..