Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

More than 400 doc­tors from the South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA) are up­set over the re­moval of mo­tor ve­hi­cle tax ex­emp­tions from their joint col­lec­tive agree­ment.At a news con­fer­ence held at the San Fer­nan­do Med­ical Li­brary yes­ter­day, act­ing pres­i­dent Dr Ravin­dranath Nar­ine claimed the de­ci­sion to re­move the tax ex­emp­tion was tak­en uni­lat­er­al­ly by the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer Stephanie Lewis with­out con­sul­ta­tion with MPATT, the recog­nised trade union.

"Doc­tors held a meet­ing to dis­cuss this doc­u­ment sent to us from the for­mer per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in Min­istry of Health, ad­vis­ing that RHA doc­tors will no longer be en­ti­tled to par­tial mo­tor ve­hi­cle tax ex­emp­tions," Nar­ine said.He added, "Doc­tors, like oth­er em­ploy­ees, are trav­el­ling of­fi­cers, and they have to work be­yond the hours of 8 am to 4 pm. They may have to work at oth­er health care in­sti­tu­tions in oth­er re­gions. This has been in ex­is­tence since time im­memo­r­i­al and is one of the few ben­e­fits that are giv­en to pub­lic trav­el­ling of­fi­cers."

Nar­ine ex­plained that in 2005, af­ter con­sul­ta­tion with the CPO, it was agreed that doc­tors would get the tax break."That was pre­vi­ous­ly arranged by the then per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Health, Reynold Coop­er, who is now head of the Pub­lic Ser­vice. Dur­ing his tenure, in a let­ter dat­ed June 16, 2005, he arranged and con­firmed the par­tial ex­emp­tion to be arranged for pub­lic of­fi­cers," Nar­ine said.

He al­so said MPATT planned to write to Health Min­is­ter Dr Fuad Khan ex­plain­ing the prob­lem.Khan, who is abroad, told CNC3 news yes­ter­day he was seek­ing to have the tax ex­emp­tion re­in­stat­ed and would meet with the doc­tors to ad­dresss their con­cerns.