Dear Editor,
As the coalition finalizes the 2016 Budget, I hope that the following partial wish list of mine coincides with the priorities identified.
To begin with, there must be provision for increased pay for those non-contract sufferers who received token pittances for a long time. They are known and numerous. This should help to ease the lingering dissonance over that other injudicious pay hike from last year.
Second, there have to be job creation projects to ameliorate the high and troubling unemployment levels, especially among youths.
Third, the tax codes have to be more business and investment friendly. Although, already forewarned, it would be encouraging to greet a decline in VAT to 12%, if not 10%. But I believe that this one is off the table.
Then, there ought to be some funding earmarked for the treatment of the mentally ill and the addicted. Similarly, the Ministry of Health (or GPHC) should be blessed with some meaningful dollars for the unrecognized, unfunded scourge of cancer. This disease is quietly killing us in droves, and now requires its own prioritization and corresponding attention and effort.
Next, it is time for a new jail. And if there is going to be emphasis on, and a push for, ecotourism, then the supporting infrastructure has to be developed and soon.
Editor, all I have identified involves spending and more spending, and nothing has been said of schools, hydropower, another bridge, and much more. Where is the money?
The GRA must, of necessity, be transformed into a national collection treasure house, and not the conduit for individual and commercial ones. There are loud reports of billings lost all around. Well, it is time that the loopholes are closed and the cheaters and evaders ousted. The mechanism and oversight for the collection of due revenues has to be tighter and cleaner. There is just too much leakage. Arguably, there are tens of billions seeping away, and ending up in non-governmental pockets.
In terms of taxes, I anticipate the cost of overseas travel (airport) to increase; and the price of domestic movement (vehicles) to be more expensive. The whole gamut is available: travel tax, vehicle tax, road tax, driver tax, and parking tax. By the way, those laughable fines for traffic violations need to get really draconian; they might work as a deterrent, as long as the GPF does its work honestly. And how about introducing meaningful consumption (sin) taxes for alcohol and tobacco? These might clear some heads and nostrils for the better.
Make no mistake, borrowings have to be part of the mix. But I think that this country’s increasingly cozy relationship with Uncle Sam has to be leveraged to the hilt. This is why uncles exist. With the Monroe Doctrine rendered almost obsolete by time and circumstance, Guyana has furnished beachheads on both land (DEA) and sea (Exxon). The US ought to be appreciative. Again, the word is leverage. Need I say more?
I trust that I shall read of some of the foregoing in the upcoming budget. We shall see.
Yours faithfully,
GHK Lall
