By Vernon Daley, Staff ReporterHEATED EXCHANGES marked yesterday's first sitting of a parliamentary committee set up to study Government's new tax measures.
The committee, chaired by Dr. Omar Davies, the Finance and Planning Minister, was to have spent the time agreeing on procedural issues for subsequent meetings, but the Opposition used the opportunity to raise concerns about the power of the committee as well as some aspects of the $14.5 billion tax plan.
Audley Shaw, the JLP's spokesman on finance, pressed the Finance Minister on whether the exemption of herbicides from the 15 per cent General Consumption Tax (GCT), extended to other agricultural inputs such as fungicide and insecticide.
Dr. Davies refused to answer the question directly, stating that he would be putting together a technical team that would assist the committee in clarifying important matters. This led to heated cross-talk, as both Government and Opposition members of the committee tried to drown out each other.
Shaw: You have brought here half-baked proposals which are not even properly cleared up...If you don't know the answer, why don't you say so?
RILING
Davies: Mr. Shaw, you will not succeed in riling me. And your committee members are not impressed with your behaviour.
Dr. Davies said he would not allow the committee to proceed in a disorderly way, in which members could raise issues randomly. He assured Mr. Shaw that his questions would be answered by the technical team which will assist the committee.
Another source of contention at yesterday's sitting, was the power of the committee to make recommendations for modifying the tax measures.
According to Mr. Shaw and Abe Dabdoub, his JLP colleague, the committee could only make recommendations for the reduction in the taxes that the minister has imposed. According to them, section 55 of the Jamaican Constitution prohibits Parliament or any of its committees from making any recommendations for new or alternative taxes to those proposed by the Finance Minister.
Dr. Davies insisted, however, that persons and interest groups appearing before the committee would be asked to make alternative proposals about how the Government could reshape the tax package. This approach was rejected by Mr. Dabdoub.
"We are not here to confuse. We are here to deal with reductions and to have you apply your mind to finding the alternative and to do that which the Constitution places a burden on you to do," he said.
RECOMMENDATION
Responding to Mr. Dabdoub, Dr. Paul Robertson, Government member of the committee, said the committee should not simply accept recommendations for the removal of taxes, but insist that persons and groups make suggestions for a new tax plan.
The committee, which will meet again next week Thursday at 10 a.m., is to invite individuals, trade unions and business groups to make written submissions and oral presentations to the committee.
The House Committee on Taxation Measures was set up recently following a recommendation by the Peter Moses-led committee which looked at ways to improve government following the gas riots in 1999.
