Dear Editor,
The trusted trader fiasco is a hare-brained scheme that is alarming even for a government that thrives on hare-brained schemes. How is this going to weaken or defeat corruption when a government is deliberately avoiding confronting corruption head-on in the very department at the centre of this fiasco (GRA) by creating this haphazard process that stinks of avoidance? This trusted trader programme will strengthen corruption. Those left out of this programme will do whatever it takes to get around the system. Even the trusted traders themselves can be used as conduits for other traders off the list to get their goods into the country. Instead of criminally investigating, charging, convicting, cleansing, pressuring, improving and battling the inherent corruption that is involved in the GRA that affects the trade lifeline of this country, this government is backing away and using this excuse to create a preferential programme for some select companies that effectively acts as a restraint on trade with stunning repercussions for the availability and price of goods once implemented. Not to mention that by engaging in this fiasco, this will drive many of those traders off the trusted trader list out of the marketplace and in doing so degrade the choices and price options for this poor economy that desperately needs massive competition to drive prices down so people can afford basic goods. That this is happening amidst a dramatic slowdown in the economy emphasizes the ludicrous fiscal and economic management actions taken by this government that seem bereft of basic common-sense. It only makes sense to bureaucrats with their heads in the sand that reducing the number of competitors in the marketplace and the expected economic derailment from this tragedy is good for an economy badly ailing at present.
You cannot tackle corruption by avoiding it. You have to confront it. Just like with the forensic audits, this government continues to backpedal when it comes to going head-to-head with corruption. This fiasco does not professionalize the GRA or the public sector in general. It is going to deepen the economic woe battering this country. This is governmental discrimination and preferentialism, plain and simple.
This is a deliberately destructive government policy. It will shrink trade, reduce profits, decimate jobs, cause capital flight, increase contraband trade and encourage tax evasion. One has to wonder whether this dismal policy has anything to do with the appearance of multinational gargantuan supermarkets seeking to dominate this variegated trading sector in this country.
What criteria related to their history of compliance is this government going to use to trust traders? This is depraved policy that operates on fundamental unfairness, restraint of trade, economic deprivation and denial of pursuit of one’s livelihood. Fix the GRA. Stamp out the corruption there. Create a proper, fair, transparent and even playing field there so that every company has a fair opportunity. Don’t use the corruption at the GRA to create this nasty piece of preferentialism and favouritism that reeks of corruption with this act.
Yours faithfully,
M. Maxwell