Shal­iza?Has­sanali

Hun­dreds of sup­port­ers of the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment went in­to a fren­zy when Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced yes­ter­day that ef­fec­tive No­vem­ber 15, the 15 per cent Val­ued Added Tax (VAT) on food items will be re­moved. She made the an­nounce­ment at the coali­tion's pre-bud­get ral­ly, An Ac­count to the Na­tion, just ahead of to­mor­row's 2012/2013 Bud­get.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the VAT re­moval was a short-term mea­sure while the Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ued to work to ex­pand the food pro­duc­tion in­dus­try. "Will that be of help to you? Re­moval of VAT on all food items?" she asked "We must do every­thing to make your life eas­i­er. In poor, rich lit­tle Trinidad and To­ba­go, our peo­ple must not suf­fer." Many sup­port­ers who were in­ter­viewed said it was the best news they had heard for the year.

The Prime Min­is­ter said in 2008 she con­tributed to a de­bate on a mo­tion in the Par­lia­ment to re­duce the high food prices but it nev­er ma­te­ri­alised un­der the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion. Food prices for the pe­ri­od 2002 to 2007 had in­creased by 200 per cent, she said. Af­ter speak­ing for close to an hour, the PM said ef­fec­tive No­vem­ber 15, the VAT will be re­moved on food items. She said al­co­holic bev­er­ages and lux­u­ry food items such as caviar would be ex­clud­ed as they were not ze­ro-rat­ed goods un­der VAT rules.

She list­ed pig­tail, canned beans like red beans, baked beans and black eye peas and lo­cal fruit juices as some of the items from which VAT would be re­moved. Cur­rent­ly, she said there were 59 food items which are ze­ro-rat­ed. VAT was in­tro­duced by the Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion (NAR) in 1990 un­der then prime min­is­ter ANR Robin­son. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: "It weighs heavy on my heart when peo­ple go hun­gry and chil­dren are un­able to at­tend school."

"The num­ber of par­ents who bear the bur­den of not be­ing able to pro­vide for their chil­dren is too high. The price to be paid for do­ing noth­ing is al­so too high." Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the coun­try need­ed to grow more food and al­ready, with eight mega farms, the agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor would get a boost. She said the re­moval of VAT on the food items will boost the lo­cal food in­dus­try and jobs will be cre­at­ed in the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor.

The Prime Min­is­ter said even though the pover­ty rate had been re­duced by four cent, she found it was still too high. She said a work­ing com­mit­tee com­pris­ing the Min­istries of Fi­nance, Food Pro­duc­tion, Prices Coun­cil, the Su­per­mar­ket As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T, the T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion, Food and Bev­er­age Sec­tion, and oth­er non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions, will re­view the list­ing of food items at­tract­ing VAT and com­pile a list of all the rec­om­mend­ed items which will be ze­ro-rat­ed.

"Fur­ther, the com­mit­tee will en­gage in a com­pre­hen­sive overview of food im­port du­ties and make rec­om­men­da­tions with re­spect to some, in or­der to re­duce food prices with­out harm­ing lo­cal food pro­duc­tion and with the added goal of in­creas­ing the lo­cal food pro­duc­tion in­dus­try," she said.