Dix­ie-Ann Dick­son

The To­ba­go di­vi­sion of the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce is con­cerned about how and when would the Gov­ern­ment re­im­burse the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty's VAT­able stock of items as it grap­ples with cash flow prob­lems.

Di­ane Hadeed, mem­ber of the man­age­ment com­mit­tee of To­ba­go Cham­ber, raised the is­sue yes­ter­day dur­ing a ques­tion and an­swer ses­sion at a break­fast meet­ing with Trade and In­vest­ment Min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath, which was host­ed by T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, at its of­fices at West­moor­ings.

Hadeed said the de­lay in pay­ment or none at all would im­pact se­vere­ly on busi­ness­es as many of them have cash flow chal­lenges. She said busi­ness had to give cred­it in or­der to sur­vive. "They are hold­ing the arm of the banker and the arm of the peo­ple they are do­ing busi­ness with and now they have a ware­house full of stock that is VAT­able, which they now have to sell with­out VAT."

She said the Gov­ern­ment is al­ready tardy with re­gards to VAT re­funds. "I know peo­ple who are owed bil­lions of dol­lars and they are now be­ing au­dit­ed for 2006. We are sev­en years be­hind. I am in the busi­ness 13 years and I have not had one cheque re­turned to me. Hadeed said no one seemed to be ad­dress­ing the is­sue.

"I want to know how this gap would be ad­dressed? I would like to know if the VAT of­fice is in­struct­ed, if the Board of In­land Rev­enue were giv­en funds to re­im­burse peo­ple with­in the next pe­ri­od, so we would not end up with fur­ther cash flow prob­lems."

She said the To­ba­go Cham­ber had been call­ing for a meet­ing to ad­dress those is­sues, but it has not had a re­sponse to date. In re­sponse, Bharath said, "We un­der­stand that this would be an is­sue. How­ev­er, I had dis­cus­sions with the Fi­nance Min­is­ter Lar­ry Howai about the VAT re­pay­ments.

Bharath said he hoped to have a one-off ex­er­cise where pay­ments would be made be­tween 30-45 days. The me­dia asked Bharath if there were any le­gal ram­i­fi­ca­tions for su­per­mar­kets and busi­ness­es that did not com­ply with the ini­tia­tive to re­move VAT on many food items.

He said the Prices Coun­cil would play a greater role in mon­i­tor­ing prices. He said while the Prices Coun­cil did not have any le­gal ju­ris­dic­tion, it would use moral sua­sion to en­cour­age busi­ness­es to com­ply. Bharath said the Prices Coun­cil could pub­lish prices to make con­sumers aware of any price dis­par­i­ty at food out­lets.

"The mar­ket would reg­u­late it­self."

To­ba­go crum­bling

Hadeed did not let Bharath off the hook eas­i­ly. She chal­lenged him on oth­er is­sues af­fect­ing To­ba­go. Hadeed said these ses­sions fre­quent­ly ne­glect­ed to men­tion To­ba­go. She said: "While peo­ple and busi­ness­es in To­ba­go are falling apart, there is no men­tion or up­date on "the $100 mil­lion debt re­cov­ery plan the Gov­ern­ment spoke about for To­ba­go."

In March, Bharath's pre­de­ces­sor Stephen Cadiz an­nounced a res­cue plan was com­ing for To­ba­go where the Gov­ern­ment would act as a guar­an­tor for busi­ness­es tem­porar­i­ly go­ing through tough times. To­ba­go busi­ness­es were said to have an es­ti­mat­ed $150 mil­lion in com­mer­cial lend­ing.

Hadeed said the Gov­ern­ment kept mov­ing the re­cov­ery plan ini­tia­tive from min­istry to min­istry and the mon­ey is not be­ing dis­persed. "It was trans­ferred from Min­istry of Fi­nance to Trade and now To­ba­go De­vel­op­ment."

"I am not here on a po­lit­i­cal pro­gramme or to hold any wa­ter for any­body. This is about fact that peo­ple are falling apart in To­ba­go and I know it is hap­pen­ing in Trinidad as well be­cause sup­pli­ers are call­ing and beg­ging you to or­der goods in an econ­o­my that is flat. It is flat in To­ba­go."