RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

On the brink of tears, a frail 75-year-old Har­ri­nar­ine Pa­tel stood out­side the Board of In­land Rev­enue of­fice in Princes Town af­ter he al­most faint­ed while wait­ing in a long line to change the name on his prop­er­ty.

A mal­func­tion­ing air con­di­tion­ing unit has trig­gered the dai­ly clo­sure of the of­fice since De­cem­ber last year, and Pa­tel wants to know why the unit has not been fixed. As the dead­line for pay­ing tax­es looms, more peo­ple have been com­ing to the of­fice.

A source told Guardian Me­dia that since No­vem­ber 15, the air con­di­tion­ing unit sys­tem at the High Street of­fice has been mal­func­tion­ing, leav­ing the en­closed space swel­ter­ing hot.

De­spite mul­ti­ple re­ports to se­nior of­fi­cials at the BIR, the sit­u­a­tion was nev­er rec­ti­fied, and one month lat­er, 20 mem­bers of staff were giv­en in­struc­tions to close the cash of­fice at 10 am and the en­tire of­fice by 10.30 am.

The ear­ly clo­sure meant that tax­pay­ers had to re­turn mul­ti­ple times to com­plete sim­ple trans­ac­tions like pay­ing tax­es or chang­ing prop­er­ty names.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the of­fice on Mon­day, there were 39 peo­ple lined up in a line that stretched from the door­way to the road­way. In­side the of­fice, cus­tomers sat close­ly to­geth­er, des­per­ate­ly fan­ning them­selves with pieces of pa­per.

Every day, over 50 cus­tomers line up to re­ceive ser­vice be­fore the ear­ly clo­sure, ac­cord­ing to a source. A sign was stuck out­side the build­ing ad­vis­ing the pub­lic of the ear­ly clo­sure time be­cause of the mal­func­tion­ing unit.

Pa­tel told Guardian Me­dia the suf­fer­ing faced by peo­ple, par­tic­u­lar­ly the el­der­ly, was heart­break­ing.

“I am not feel­ing well. All they could do is get two tents and put them out­side,” Pa­tel said, his voice trem­bling with frus­tra­tion. He added, “I al­most faint­ed this morn­ing. If rain falls, what hap­pens then?”

But the chaos ex­tend­ed be­yond just the dis­com­fort to the ac­tu­al process of do­ing busi­ness.

San­dra Seep­er­sad said cus­tomers are re­quired to line up, en­ter the of­fice to speak with an agent, and then re­turn out­side to wait in yet an­oth­er line.

“Some­times peo­ple have to come back here five times on five dif­fer­ent days to com­plete their busi­ness,” Seep­er­sad re­vealed.

Dilowtie Khaden, who reg­u­lar­ly vis­its the of­fice to pay her PAYE, shared her frus­tra­tion.

“I made a long line, got my pay­ment slip in­side and then send me back out­side to wait again, and now there are 17 peo­ple be­hind me, all wait­ing. It’s a night­mare,” she said.

Paula Joseph-John­son, an­oth­er tax­pay­er, added: “This is the sec­ond time I’ve come to pay my prop­er­ty tax. The first time, the of­fice was al­ready closed by 10 am, and we didn’t know they closed so ear­ly. Now I’m here again, al­most an hour lat­er, and still wait­ing.”

Alan Per­sad, a vis­i­bly frus­trat­ed tax­pay­er, said, “Noth­ing works in this coun­try. It’s time to change this gov­ern­ment.”

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert for a com­ment, but there was no re­sponse.

How­ev­er, Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance Bri­an Man­ning re­spond­ed by say­ing: “The mat­ter is be­ing looked in­to, and we hope that it can be re­solved soon.”

Ques­tions were al­so sent to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley but there was no re­sponse.