THERE IS HARDLY a person now in the Cabinet who has worked in a senior job in private business. This absence is clearly felt in the lack of business acumen applied to the Budget.Business people know that when times are hard, you must cut back on expenses, foster the little business that you have, keep your customers and try and grow your way back into health. If the business faces fraud, then isolate the perpetrators and get them out of the
organisation.
Apply this logic to the Budget with this sampling of what should be done:
Cut back on expenses. Often, token actions have far-reaching effects. Start with cutting down the number of ministries. Justice, Commerce, Science and Technology; Land and Environment, Local Government, Community Development and Sport are all just waiting to be combined or eliminated. Reduce the number of Ministers and Ministers of State by, say, one-third. The morning after this is done people would realise the Government is serious about cost control.
Foster the little business that you have by giving support for those persons in the country who are law-abiding. If an individual or a company is paying taxes and providing employment then give them encouragement. Show them that their taxes are being well spent and not frittered away or stolen. Hold them up as examples to the society.
Enforce the collection of taxes due. Ensure that all import taxes are collected at the ports. If necessary, bring expertise from abroad to improve the control and administration of our ports.
Regrettably the Government has yet to demonstrate any real commitment to enforce tax collection other than against the law-abiding taxpayer. Billions of dollars of goods enter through the ports each year and are cleared without the appropriate duty being paid. It is within the capacity of Government to correct this disgrace. Hundreds of businesses do not pay tax many exist to launder drug money, but few are held accountable.
Stop jumping opportunistically on success. The telephone companies start competing, lower rates and what happens? The reduction in telephone rates is not allowed to flow to the user. Instead Government jumps in and takes it away from the user through higher GCT.
A Budget which penalises success and does not encourage growth is one grounded in the economic socialist philosophy of the 1970s.
The Government needs to turn over a new leaf, wake up, and start putting Jamaica back onto a path of economic recovery.
Messrs Patterson and Davies should publicly demonstrate their intention to collect the taxes due, stop bribery and corruption at the ports, reduce the number of elected officers warming ministerial chairs, and persuade the taxpayer that value will be obtained for every dollar of taxation collected.
