‘During 2020 and 2021, we spent the money keeping you alive and there was not sufficient money to spend on road repairs’ – Dr Keith Rowley
By Chantalé Fletcher
PRIME Minister Dr Keith Rowley says Trinidad and Tobago is faced with huge tax leakage.
He said, “So we are not collecting the taxes that the country is to collect from the laws that are applicable. We are not talking about new taxes, increased taxes but connecting what the current laws allow the Government to get.”
During his presentation at the People’s National Movement (PNM) public meeting in Belmont, Dr Rowley said that because of the inefficiencies in the public service after examination, it was decided that a Revenue Authority would function better than the current Board of Inland Revenue.
He said, “The Opposition wanted no part of that, the same Opposition that is making all kinds of demands that we give the country, this, that and the other, where everything to give costs money. Trying to play popular, to be friendly by saying they will not support a Revenue Authority which is a new arrangement to be able to properly collect the taxes.”
Dr Rowley said there was the same problem with property tax, as he accused the Opposition of not wanting to pay one cent property tax in T&T where the Government provided roads, lights, fire, police, mosquitoes and rat killing unless the property is in Florida.
He said, “All of them have property abroad, the whole cabal and they are first in line to pay up there but look what is happening in T&T.
“They gave amnesty and ended it the month before leaving office in 2015, as we came in to collect the tax they said was due because the amnesty had ended, they started up again with no property tax. So you can make all these demands on the taxpayer to keep your property well valued, the only interest you have is pothole.”
Dr Rowely said the Government has acknowledged that the roads in the country would have deteriorated considerably.
“During 2020 and 2021, we spent the money keeping you alive and there was not sufficient money to spend on road repairs. We made that call because as far as we are concerned, spending the money keeping you alive in the pandemic because the $13 billion I spoke about didn’t have enough for road maintenance.
“If we had put $1 billion, it would have $14 billion, if we had put $2 billion for road repairs it would have been $15 billion because we were actually borrowing $13 billion from the bank to spend it on you. But now we are in a position to do better, and we are and will do better focusing on our road improvement now.”
He said, “Only recently Cabinet approved the formation of a road repair company specifically in the Ministry of Local Gov, which has been operationalised now, a board has been appointed the Minister of Finance will make the money available, we are going to mobile contractors, small, medium and whatever and we are going out to dig into reinstate our roads.
“There was a question of priorities and in the middle of a pandemic, the priority could not be potholes, the priority had to be life and limb.”
