Junior Finance Minister could be taken before Privileges Committee – Jagdeo

Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo is deliberating on having Junior Finance Minister Jaipaul Sharma taken before the Privileges Committee of Parliament after his statement that the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) gave billion in tax breaks to friends and family.

He made this revelation on Thursday during a press conference at his office on Church Street. According to Jagdeo, the concessions were given to individuals and organisations such as remigrants, churches, businesses and hospitals.

“I’m tempted to take Sharma before the Committee of Privileges for this. But then it may not make sense. We have heard from Minister Winston Jordan once that the $55 billion of tax remissions was given to friends and family of the PPP.”

“Sharma repeated this in his budget speech and I see it headlined in the newspapers. So anyone hearing this would say, hold on a minute, these people must have been messing with our revenue, this warrants exploration.”

According to Jagdeo, these tax breaks went to “hospitals, companies and businesses, churches and charitable organisations, public officers and officials, Ministries and Government departments, re-migrants, diplomats and foreign-funded projects.”

“That’s where it went to, not friends and families of the PPP.”

Jagdeo said that with this in mind, he was deliberating on taking the Junior Finance Minister before the Committee.

The former Head of State also said that the tax breaks to these categories were cut, but the tax breaks for Ministries increased to $4.3 billion in 2016.

“That is the only category that is increasing. Everything else cutting down. They’ve reduced the remission to churches, to charitable organisations, to companies, to remigrants, but they have increased remissions to Ministries and Government departments.”

According to Jagdeo, concessions were granted to Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo to bring in vehicles duty-free.

“The Prime Minister can now bring in personal vehicles, VAT-free. That was one of the measures introduced in the 2017 Budget. They could have left it alone, but that was one of the tax breaks. And then putting VAT on babies’ milk and supplies and things disabled people use.

“So I had to debunk this, because they keep repeating it and it keeps appearing in the papers all the time.”

Sharma had made this disclosure while making a presentation in Parliament on Monday, based on a tax motion.

While he did not produce any reports from the Guyana Revenue Authority to support this contention, Sharma was adamant that the figures were factual.

Private charges for MPs

“We had asked for the release of the tax records for all MPs. They have voted against this for the past 10 years.”

According to Jagdeo, this is not being done because he believes there is tax evasion being committed by individuals. With this in mind, Jagdeo stated that the Opposition may proceed to file private criminal charges against Ministers and MPs who are non-compliant with the Integrity Commission Act.

“We have made it clear that we will probably have to file private criminal charges against Ministers and Members of Parliament who have not complied. And for the past couple of weeks we have talked about this, because it does not seem as though SARA (State Assets Recovery Agency) is interested in those transgressions.”

“It (SARA) talks the talk, but is not interested and we may never find out about their assets. They are targeting only Opposition people and private individuals. So, we may have to file private criminal charges for non-submission to the Integrity Commission.”

The issue of submitting declarations to the Integrity commission has been a sore one for some time. Back in 2005, then Leader of the Opposition, Robert Corbin, had taken legal action to rescind the appointment of the Chairman.

He had stated that then President Jagdeo had not consulted him.

Jagdeo is on record as having called on the Government benches to declare their assets, stating that if this is done he would make public his own assets, both locally and overseas. This challenge has never been accepted by the coalition.

According to the Integrity Commission Act, MPs and other listed officials are supposed to file their annual returns with the Integrity Commission. However, the body has not been a functioning one.