A number of weeks ago I read an interesting article by Dr Omar Davies former minister of finance, urging Mr Tufton to proceed at full speed with his push for local agricultural production. This amazed me because as minister of finance he placed GCT on nearly every agricultural input including fertiliser. Though he did eventually remove the GCT on fertiliser he did not remove it on the other inputs.

Claims

The farmer was then supposed to claim these back as input tax. So the farmer sends in his claim for input tax only to be told that as he sold the fruits of his labour to a processor, the processor should pay GCT on his sale, and the farmer should then deduct the GCT input tax and hand over the rest.

When the farmer claimed the GCT from the processor he was given a letter by Dr Davies saying that the institution need not pay GCT. The end result is that the farmer had to 'hug up' the GCT on his/her inputs, which drove up the cost of production with no ability to claim back the input tax of 16 1/2 per cent.

Push to agriculture

Some farmers that have other business such as supermarkets are able to claim back the GCT from what they hand over, but those that have no other way of gathering other peoples' GCT just had to hug it up and still have to hug it up.

That this ex-minister could now be promoting a push to agriculture amazes me, but then again Saul was converted to Paul on the way to Damascus.

I am, etc.,

CHARLES GILPIN-HUDSON

Guanaboa Vale P.O.

St Catherine