Gail Alexan­der

The de­bate on the For­eign Ac­count Tax Com­pli­ance Agree­ment (FAT­CA) was foiled by a sec­ond walk­out by the Op­po­si­tion in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day.

De­bate on the con­tro­ver­sial FAT­CA leg­is­la­tion now runs over to Mon­day – a sit­u­a­tion which left Gov­ern­ment MPs fum­ing.

|"They walked out on FAT­CA de­bate twice. We can't pass this bill on our own, they're guilty of dere­lic­tion of du­ty to the peo­ple," At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi said. "Cham­bers, busi­ness as­so­ci­a­tions, the me­dia, every­body should con­demn them – shame on the Op­po­si­tion."

Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion had met yes­ter­day where the leg­is­la­tion was to have been de­bat­ed fol­low­ing the fail­ure to agree in Sep­tem­ber.

Then, the Op­po­si­tion had tak­en is­sue with sev­er­al claus­es and dur­ing fi­nal stages of de­bate, had walked out of the cham­ber. The bill which re­quires Op­po­si­tion sup­port for pas­sage had lapsed. Gov­ern­ment had promised to re­turn it to de­bate af­ter the 2017 Bud­get and that it would be scru­ti­nised by a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee as the Op­po­si­tion want­ed.

The leg­is­la­tion fa­cil­i­tates US deal­ings with lo­cal fi­nan­cial en­ti­ties on US cit­i­zens' ac­counts. It would en­able all lo­cal in­sti­tu­tions to iden­ti­fy and re­port to the US In­ter­nal Rev­enue Ser­vice (IRS) on the ac­counts of US clients. I f not en­act­ed, T&T could suf­fer sanc­tions from the US in­clud­ing a 30 per cent with­hold­ing tax on trans­ac­tions and halt of on­line fi­nan­cial trans­ac­tions. This stands to shut down T&T's bank­ing sec­tor and the econ­o­my. The US Gov­ern­ment has urged T&T to pass the leg­is­la­tion by Feb­ru­ary 2017.

Be­fore yes­ter­day's de­bate be­gan, how­ev­er, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar raised for de­bate the is­sue of T&T's ris­ing crime, as a mat­ter of ur­gent na­tion­al im­por­tance. She cit­ed lives lost and miss­ing peo­ple amid a rapid es­ca­la­tion of crime. She said mur­ders are be­ing com­mit­ted with im­puni­ty dai­ly at an un­prece­dent­ed rate and the sit­u­a­tion was caus­ing fear, with fam­i­lies los­ing loved one.

She said if that con­tin­ued, it would send sig­nals to crim­i­nals that their deeds would go un­pun­ished and could con­tin­ue. She said the sit­u­a­tion was dam­ag­ing T&T's rep­u­ta­tion.

"There could be no more im­por­tant mat­ter than pro­tect­ing the lives of our cit­i­zens," Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

House Speak­er Bridgid An­nisette-George said the mat­ter did not qual­i­fy for de­bate un­der the reg­u­la­tion Per­sad-Bisses­sar had filed it and ad­vised she re­file it un­der reg­u­la­tion 16. As An­nisette-George spoke, Per­sad-Bisses­sar protest­ed the de­vel­op­ment, as did rum­bling Op­po­si­tion voic­es.

An­nisette-George in­struct­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar and UNC MP Rod­ney Charles to leave.

But even as An­nisette-George be­gan speak­ing, all oth­er UNC MPs had al­ready grabbed their be­long­ings and moved to leave al­so. Some com­plain­ing nois­i­ly. De­spite the emp­ty Op­po­si­tion bench­es, Gov­ern­ment pressed on with "de­bate" on the bill, with state­ments from AG Al-Rawi, PNM MPs Fitzger­ald Hinds and Stu­art Young – all of whom con­demned the Op­po­si­tion's walk-out.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert lat­er be­gan wind­ing up de­bate which con­tin­ues next Mon­day.