House passes tax and reform measures
The intentions have been clear for weeks but it was not until today in the House of Representatives that Government formalised the results of lengthy negotiations with the nation’s unions and business groups, over taxes and political reforms. Patrick Jones reports from Belmopan.
Prime Minister Said Musa
?Madam Speaker this Bill represents a very strong foundation for improving financial management and reporting in public service. I recommend this Bill to this honourable house for its second reading and I so move.?
Patrick Jones, Reporting
The meeting opened with the introduction for second reading of the Finance and Audit Reform Bill, 2004, which seeks to put in place measures to regulate the way government spends its money and reign in its ability to borrow without accountability. While there was general support for the legislation on both sides of the aisle, there were reservations, both red and blue.
Patrick Faber, Collect Area Representative
?This Bill has come about not because our government at present wishes to reform. This Bill that is before us today has not come here because they truly want to do things in a different way and I will point out examples of that shortly Madam Speaker. But in fact this Bill that is before us today has come about because of those people that are outside the National Assembly Building today. This Bill has come before us today Madam Speaker because the business people that are joined with those outside and that are listening on the radios right now, that said to this government, you need to get your act together, you need to change the way you are doing things.?
Mark Espat, Albert Area Representative
?And so Madam Speaker in section seven, I believe that the proviso that limits overall borrowing in any particular year, should be dependent on the actual government revenues for previous year. In other words, government should only borrow and National Assembly should only approve according to the treasury?s ability to pay. As it now stands, the amendments of the committee does not remove that ten percent sealing linked to G.D.P. and total depth. But it offers now a provision that unlimited monies can be borrowed at any given time, provided that the monies only are borrowed for expenditure that is not recurrent. But Madam Speaker that is no consolation quite frankly since one would not expect that the Government of Belize would borrow for recurrent expenditure.?
Dean Barrow, Leader of Opposition
?My short point is Madam Speaker, this can never make up for the undiluted corruption in which the current administration swamped this country and which produced what we have seen in terms of the social convulsions that have rocked us over past months. That apart Madam Speaker, even the Bill itself, as I said, there are a number of good features but to some extent what it gives with one hand, it takes away with the other.?
Cordel Hyde, Lake Independence Area Representative
?Madam Speaker I applaud the government on their efforts on this Bill. I gather that much meaningful consultation went into the drafting of this Bill. I just wished the government would have been as cooperative and as supportive on other issues such as the environmental tax and excise tax on beer. I think that this Bill today will prevent or at least stem some of excesses of past. I do believe though that the enduring solution to our problems cannot be found purely in the laws of the land. I believe that our problems are that of the human heart. It is there that we must look for the answers. But until we do that until we have our hearts pointed in the right direction, this Finance and Audit Reform Bill will have to do.?
Anthony Martinez, Port Loyola Area Representative
?We must be able to sit down and dialogue with each other. So Madam Speaker I am saying that we must start reform here; we must start reform now; we must start reform within ourselves because if the monkey has on short pants or if it has on tuxedo it is still a monkey. So if we continue longer same way Madam Speaker, we aren?t going nowhere.?
Other Bills that were passed through the required second and third readings included the Income and Business Tax Amendment Bill and the Sales Tax Amendment Bill, which rolled back implementation, date from February first to March first. The Environmental Tax Amendment Bill was also passed, bringing the levy to two percent as of April first. A series of motions were also introduced, including one to reduce the salaries of parliamentarians and ministers of government by ten percent and the write off of thousands of dollars in G.O.B. vehicles and stolen items from the public inventory.
But then the fireworks came when it was time to pass the amendment to the Brewery Act. Mesopotamia Area Representative Michael Finnegan rose to register his disappointment that the government did not accede to the trade union?s proposals to raise the taxes to pre-1998 levels. Other members, including two government legislators, also opposed the Bill.
Michael Finnegan, Mesopotamia Area Representative
?The people of this country cannot afford and cannot tolerate the unnecessary burdensome taxation of this government. Let us put the taxation on the burden on the backs of those sacred cows Madam Speaker, and in my view, Barrington from Washington could afford to pay it. Madam Speaker they have set out spending thousands of dollars in advertisement trying to fool the people of this country how gracious and how generous they are; who good they are to the people of this country when they could have been paying their taxes and all those monies that are spending on advertisements and the millions of dollars in cheques that are given to the Peoples United Party, the now party in government, those monies could have been spent on the workers.?
When speaker Elizabeth Zabaneh tried to get Finnegan to refrain from naming the owner of Brewing Company in his presentation, it drew a shark exchange from the opposition side. Finnegan was allowed to finish his presentation, and then the members for Albert and Lake Independence rose to make their contributions to the debate.
Mark Espat
?Where they have invested this money is not the issue. The beer company has said that in 2004 they paid more taxes than they did in 1998. The amount of taxes that they paid relative to 1998 is not the issue. The beer company has pointed to their many programmes supporting the community in sports and education. Their community programmes, laudable than they may be, are not the issue. Madam Speaker what is the issue before us is simple. Principally because of debt service the government has said that it needs to raise taxes. The question is where will these taxes come from? The issue is profit versus people. There is nothing wrong with profit. Let me hasten to say. But I believe that profit cannot come before people. A government can be friend of people without being enemy of profit.?
Cordel Hyde
?Forget about all the facts and figures we?ve heard in the last two months. At the end of the day it is a question of what is more important: the people of Belize or the bank accounts of a select few. Madam Speaker, if we are asking the little man on the street to sacrifice, then the big man should sacrifice some more. In times of plenty, the fat cats got a lot. Now in times of famine, it is the poor who is expected to foot the Bill. That?s bogus. It shouldn?t work like that. Madam Speaker a four dollars excise tax on beer is a joke…a sick, sick joke. When the excise tax on beer was reduced from twelve dollars a gallon in 1998 to a dollar and eighteen cents, it wasn?t the masses of the people who benefit it. The prices of beer went down shilling, one solitary shilling. Madam Speaker we are not interested with what Mr. Bowen does with his money. We are not red-eyeing his profits. That is his. We in the government gave it to him. Never mind that he promised us a milk factory so that all our primary school children can drink a glass of milk each day. All the people of Belize is saying is that starting in 1998 these special gifts were given to you, so in 2005, we need for you to start paying your fair share.?
When he rose to close the debate on the issue, it was clear that the pointed presentations of the previous speakers, cheered on by the opposition and union members in the galleries had gotten to the Prime Minister.
Prime Minister Said Musa
?It?s a lot of rhetoric. We are being guided today not from any particular relationship with former Senator Bowen because he has resigned from the senate. We are guided by several factors Madam Speaker and one of them is here is a successful Belizeans who has invested millions of dollars into this country; who has showed that he has made a success of his investments. All those who talk about we must help the productive sector. Well he is in the productive sector. Isn?t he producing for the Belizean people and saving us from foreign exchange? He is working towards an industry that can be export oriented. But they speak with fork tongues on that side. Many of them in the union too speak with fork tongues because they say we must help the productive sector. But when we are helping the productive sector, or when we are trying to create a level playing field for the productive sector they target this gentleman and they target his company.?
?Obviously, there is a lot of politics at work here Madam Speaker. It?s very blatant, it?s very clear that these people who profess to want to work for the working poor, they want to have political control without going to the people of Belize to decide who should have that political control. Go and form a party or go and join the Opposition as you have been doing. You cannot have political control unless the Belizean people tell you, you can have it.?
Patrick Jones, for News 5.
Other Bills that passed through the House today included the Town Property Evaluation Amendment Bill, the Inferior Courts Amendment Bill and the Representation of the People Amendment Bill, which gives effect to proposals by the Elections and Boundaries Commission to redraw boundary lines and increase the number of electoral divisions. The Bills go to the Senate for approval next week.
