The Prime Minister has given our nation an enlightening and commendable address on December 29, 2015, whereby every patriotic citizen should rally behind and support his honest revelations on the ravaged state of the economy. Each of us in our own way must work to defend our economy from the evident threats to our sustainability.
We are concerned about the possible depletion of the Heritage and Stabilization Fund, and that the prime minister has not explored the correctly tabulated collection of duty, VAT and royalties from two sectors which have fallen under his radar, namely the online import sector and the quarry sector.
It is a statistical fact that 10 per cent of the total national import bill in 2014 was online purchases (approximately 150 million USD. We argue that the collection of duty (20 per cent) and VAT (15 per cent compounded=18 per cent) for the online purchase sector is being loosely managed by our Customs and Excise Division.
The online import sector has taken our administrations by surprise and the Customs regulations have not evolved apace with this sector's fast growth. The legally designated Duty and VAT(38 per cent) is not being collected due to loopholes which are causing our treasury to be deprived of approximately half a billion TTD annually. We can argue this with evidence in any forum. Can we afford to subsidise online buyers with duty free imports?
The second revenue generation blind spot has been revealed in the Green Paper on Minerals Policy 2014, and quoted in the T&T Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (TTEITI) Report which shows several unusual even complicit historic irregularities in the Ministry of Energy's (mis)management of the legal quarry sector whereby we estimate the Treasury is being deprived of an approximate 1 billion TTD annually.
"The Green Paper ...also alludes to a potential gross underreporting of production and royalty payments during the period 2001 to 2013 and notes that only 10 per cent of royalties was collected for this period."
Interestingly, even though the quarry sector owes the Treasury an underreported, undervalued royalty of over 120 million TTD from 2001 to 2013, all of the 41 operators continue to enjoy renewed licenses without encumbrance or penalty.
While our respected leaders plan to spend our Heritage and Stabilization funds, should they not, instead, stop the glaring subsidisation of the billionaire quarry operators?
Gary Aboud,
Secretary,
FFOS