What is it meant by contentious in "contentious cess" in the sentence below?

Question

No doubt tsunami funds are behind this, but still an amazing achievement/development. It struck me that this is what the Kerala Govt should have done to the Kerala Fishermen Welfare Fund Board which is strapped for funds to run its numerous welfare schemes and is dependent on a *contentious cess* on seafood export units.

Answer 1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cess
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?sourceid=Mozilla-search&va=contentious