Gail Alexan­der

The Board of In­land Rev­enue (BIR) will deal with cul­prits charg­ing more than the 12.5 Val­ue Added Tax rate where nec­es­sary. Fast food es­tab­lish­ments should al­so be us­ing the 12.5 per cent VAT rate, Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Min­is­ter Max­ie Cuffie has said.

He spoke about the is­sue at yes­ter­day's post-Cab­i­net me­dia con­fer­ence at the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, St Clair.

On the is­sue con­cern­ing im­ple­men­ta­tion of the new 12.5 per cent VAT rate, which be­came ef­fec­tive last Mon­day, Cuffie said the Trade Min­is­ter had es­tab­lished a hot­line (800-4277) for con­sumers to call in con­cerns.

Cuffie said the Trade Min­is­ter said she had got­ten calls and the hot­line was be­ing used. "She al­so said peo­ple have been call­ing in from su­per­mar­kets," he added.

The Trade Min­is­ter al­so an­nounced that a team of ten in­spec­tors from the Con­sumer Af­fairs Di­vi­sion would be on pa­trol to mon­i­tor mer­chants and oth­er sup­pli­ers to en­sure prop­er com­pli­ance with the new VAT rate.

Asked what sanc­tions or mea­sures could be tak­en in in­stances where peo­ple were charg­ing more than the 12.5 per cent rate on items which do not have this, Cuffie said there were mea­sures the BIR could take to treat with that sit­u­a­tion." The sit­u­a­tion could be dealt with through the VAT of­fice," he said.

Asked about restau­rant and fast food out­lets in par­tic­u­lar which may be over­charg­ing VAT, he said there was VAT on cer­tain types of rice, flour and oth­er items on the Fi­nance Min­istry had pro­vid­ed "but not on fast foods, so all fast food out­lets should have changed their rates of VAT and dropped it from 15 per cent to 12.5 per cent."

On un­cer­tain­ty by book­sellers who have al­so com­plained about specifics on the VAT is­sue, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert has said he would pub­lish a list of the items which car­ried VAT and those with­out VAT in a pull­out in the news­pa­per this week­end to clar­i­fy the sit­u­a­tion.

PM for Cari­com meet­ing in Be­lize

Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley will make a pre­sen­ta­tion on crime when he at­tends his first Cari­com meet­ing–the 27th In­ter­s­es­sion­al con­fer­ence–over Feb­ru­ary 16 to 17 in Be­lize.

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Min­is­ter Max­ie Cuffie, an­nounc­ing this yes­ter­day, said Row­ley would leave Feb­ru­ary 15.

He will be ac­com­pa­nied to the meet­ing by a 12-mem­ber del­e­ga­tion, in­clud­ing the Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs and Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Den­nis Moses. Oth­er mem­bers of the del­e­ga­tion are large­ly of­fi­cials of the For­eign Af­fairs Min­istry.

Cuffie was un­able to say if Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert would again act as Prime Min­is­ter as hap­pened when Row­ley was over­seas re­cent­ly. (GA)