N.T.U.C.B. and Chamber sign cooperation agreement

Although the unions were busy planning for their protest in Belmopan, this afternoon they took time out to join with the Belize Chamber of Commerce and Industry to sign a “cooperation agreement”. That agreement, signed by Chamber President Arturo Vasquez and N.T.U.C.B. President Horris Patten, establishes a working relationship between the two organisations, based on their opposition to government’s new taxes. After the brief ceremony News 5’s Stewart Krohn asked the Chamber President just what the cooperation agreement means.

Arturo Vasquez, President, B.C.C.I.
?We have mentioned to members that they are willing to participate as individuals, but we are not participating as the Chamber.?

Stewart Krohn
?But if you so buddy-buddy with unions now why don?t you encourage your members to participate right along with the members of the P.S.U.??

Arturo Vasquez
?Well as the agreement states, we will not necessarily be participating in everything; in each and every activity that we have. There may be some that we may decide to approach at a different angle.?

Stewart Krohn
?Why you approaching tomorrow?s demonstration in a different way??

Arturo Vasquez
?Well, for a couple of reasons. One of the important ones is that we would have to have a membership meeting together first to determine what the general consensus of the membership would be before we do that and at this point we don?t have much for that. So we are just advising the members to approach it and support it. We are supporting it but we are not going out there as the Chamber of Commerce. But we are in full support of the action.?

Stewart Krohn
?Looking at your agreement it seems the point that both the unions and the Chamber are together on is the call for no new taxes. Without new taxes, how is the government supposed to meet its budgetary targets? Realistically??

Arturo Vasquez
?Well, I guess that?s the job for them to decide. But I think reducing expenditure is also one way of cutting cost. ?No new taxes? is a statement that we could look at it determining that the taxes need to be sent into different directions as well.?

Stewart Krohn
?The document talks about tax equity. Yesterday at the Cabinet briefing Minister Joe Coye said that at present the tax system skewed too much in favour of the simplicity and needs to come more on the side of equity. Now when we talk about equity what that means is that the poor are going to pay less and the rich, namely your constituency, are going to pay more. How does the Chamber which represents the business sector climb on board a scene like that? We can see why the unions would. They tend to represent a more bread and butter, middle and lower class constituency. But how the Chamber gets on that bandwagon??

Arturo Vasquez
?Actually that statement was made yesterday. I think I heard about it but I am not prepared to give a full detail or comment on that right now.?

Stewart Krohn
?Well, forget what Minister Coye said, your own document says that, ?The medium term objectives of the organisations are: to pressure Government to overhaul the entire tax system to capture principles of equity, transparency and simplicity…?

Arturo Vasquez
?Yes, that?s the objective we want to reach as to how we will get there and where we will look. I don?t think we have gotten to those details as yet.?

Stewart Krohn
?So you don?t necessarily agree with Minister Coye that there is not enough equity in the system now??

Arturo Vasquez
?Yeah, I think I agree with him but like as I said as to how we will look at it at this point I am not prepared to discuss that in details.?

Stewart Krohn
?With all the time that has gone by over the last several months and with taxes such an important part of the whole controversy, why am I so surprised that your organisation, the crème de la crème of the business community hasn?t given any thought to what kind of tax system you want to see??

Arturo Vasquez
?No, Stewart. You asked me to comment on what the Minister said yesterday, that?s what you asked me.?

Stewart Krohn
?Well let me ask you again, as your own document says you are looking for principles of equity, what kinds of tax system does the Chamber of Commerce wants to see instituted. If you said you want it overhaul, what kind of tax system would you like to see??

Arturo Vasquez
?I don?t know. We would have to get into the details of that first.?

Stewart Krohn
?When is the Chamber planning to get into the details??

Arturo Vasquez
?I would believe that we probably started working on that already but I am not prepared to get into the details of that right now.?