Dear Editor,
About three weeks or so ago, on October 25, Stabroek News quoted the President as saying “I don’t see any need, at this point in time, to revise it [VAT rate]… We don’t think VAT is a burden because of what it replaced.” We have not seen any correction of this report from the government so we have to assume it’s correct. We have been thinking about the statement and discussing it ever since, and becoming angrier and angrier every day.
Who feels it knows it. Who doesn’t feel it doesn’t know it.
As women caring for children and others in poor families we are feeling the brunt of the VAT. Before VAT we were already scrambling to survive. Some of us are doing two and three jobs. We cut back on necessities including food. Sometimes we are forced to decide between sending our children to school and feeding them.
When VAT was imposed, along with others we fought for it to be taken off of essential items and won that victory. At the time the government said that it wasn’t going to be making any profit off the VAT. That turned out not to be true, but still the government won’t reduce the tax much less remove it. The government is proud to say that the money is being invested in the social services, but it is wrong to take money from those who can least afford it in the name of providing services which are an entitlement and not a favour.
When they maintain the 16% VAT on so many items what are they saying? That because we are poor we can’t have certain basic things, for example, a stove, a fan, an iron? Most often we cannot afford to buy these things.
A small four-burner gas stove costs $ 36,000, more than many women (including many health professionals on whom our lives depend) earn in a whole month. When the 16% VAT is added, the cost of the stove is $ 41,760 which means we are forced to find an extra $5,760, more than many women (for example, some domestic workers, security guards and shop assistants) earn in a whole week. The extra $5,760 which the President says is not a burden could buy a cheap iron and still get change to buy some rice.
In many poor households, what women do to acquire money for items we need is to throw box hands. But since the box hand has to stretch to do other things as well – for example to pay for all the high costs of the free education – we have to find other ways to cut and contrive. One thing many women do is to buy items without receipts in order to avoid paying the VAT. But this has its own problems; it makes it difficult for us to return damaged items or have any proof that we own these items. Some of us are afraid to apply for a telephone because we have to pay VAT on the bill. Many of us can’t even afford to give our families a little treat, for example, a pizza, because that too has VAT. One of us has just experienced a fire that destroyed everything and is finding it difficult to start over because every household item attracts 16% VAT.
These are just a few examples of the effect of VAT on poor women and our families. We have not mentioned how much more work it takes to stretch our money when we have to pay the 16% VAT. Can the President relate to this kind of living? No!
Who feels it, knows it. Who doesn’t feel it can afford to say that VAT is not a burden. But the President wouldn’t have to go far to find out the true situation; he only has to ask the low-waged persons providing services around him how they are living.
In closing we would like to thank Christopher Ram for his two columns on VAT and his previous work on VAT. If what he is saying is wrong, those in authority should show us how. We are raising our voices from the grassroots, because we know from our daily life that VAT is a burden that for many, many of us is beyond bearing.
Yours faithfully,
Joy Marcus
Joycelyn Bacchus
Halima Khan
Susan Collymore
Red Thread and
Grassroots Women
across Race (GWAR)
