Home Top Stories PNC owes over $6.7B in rates & taxes for Congress Place, other...
…“they need a break too” – mayor defends tax cuts
General Secretary of the ruling People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C), Dr Bharrat Jagdeo, has joined in condemning the recent move by the cash-strapped Georgetown Mayor and City Council (M&CC) to reduce the taxes owed by political parties.
It was previously reported that this move would only benefit the Peoples National Congress-led A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), which owes the Council millions in taxes.
Speaking during a news conference on Wednesday, Jagdeo revealed that based on investigations, the PNC’s Headquarters alone – Congress Place located at Sophia, Georgetown, – owes some $6.7 billion.
“How do you get your rates and taxes up to $6.7 billion. Clearly, they have not been paying for a very, very long time,” Jagdeo remarked, noting that “So, clearly this proposal is to deprive the citizens of Georgetown and the Mayor and Town Council, the taxes that are due to them from the People’s National Congress,” he contended.
In addition to the PNC headquarters, there are three other properties under the party’s name that owes hefty sums to the tune of $1.2 million, $988,000 and $3.5 million, respectively.
Jagdeo, who also serves as the Vice President in the current PPP/C Administration, said his party was suspicious of the move by City Hall. He explained that as the largest political party, the PPP/C did not request nor was consulted on such a move by the M&CC hence their 11 Councillors on the City Council opposed, though unsuccessful, the motion.
“We were shocked that they will just bring this proposal and then rush it through the city Council. So, there had to be an ulterior motive here,” he noted.
According to the PPP General Secretary, this move by the City Council was only taken after a Demand Notice was sent to Congress Place to settle the monies owed to the M&CC.
“This is a political party that is influencing the taxation policy in an entity that it controls to benefit itself… This is typical PNC behaviour. Lawless…,” Jagdeo lamented.
The M&CC on Monday passed an ‘Institutional Rate Policy’ seeking to exempt political parties from paying rates and taxes, or reducing those sums. This would see the benefitting parties paying as low as 25 per cent of rates and taxes owed.
Cash-strapped
According to the document seen by this publication, the City Council, led by APNU, is looking to affix this benefit to any property titled to the political party once that party has been in existence for two or more years.
PPP/C Councillor, Don Singh, explained that this provision will only benefit the APNU. He said the policy is “hastily put together without any justification” as he questioned “why reducing political parties’ [taxes] when you running others down for rates and taxes?”
During his weekly programme ‘Issues in the News’ on Tuesday evening, Minister of Legal Affairs Anil Nandlall had criticised the council’s move.
“I have not seen in recent times a more vulgar and shameless act,” he said, noting that the council is already cash-strapped and should therefore seek to collect all outstanding debts.
“The Georgetown Mayor & City Council (M&CC) cannot even afford to pick up the garbage from the residents of Georgetown without a subvention from the government, they cannot repair their home which is the City Hall without a subvention from the government, they cannot discharge most of their duties without a subvention,” he decried.
Furthermore, Nandlall said the reduction or exemption of rates and taxes should be directed to the less fortunate instead of political parties.
“Need a little break”
However, defending the decision to slash the rates and taxes owed by political parties, Georgetown Mayor, Alfred Mentore, argued that the implementation of the ‘Institutional Rate Policy’ is to help reduce the financial strain on political parties.
“The political parties are peopled by various citizens of Georgetown, wherever… Political parties work in a social welfare form. They are not-for-profit… Every year or every five years, these parties at a national level got to go seek monies, got to seek donations, got to seek financing to run off elections. In a local fashion, they also need to get monies to be able to do those things. So, it’s natural that those political parties also need a little break, like the citizens as well…,” the mayor stated.
He was at the time speaking at a press conference on Wednesday alongside fellow PNC Councillors, Leon Saul and Clayton Hinds who responded to an interview done by three PPP/C councilors.
Mentore went onto dismiss claims that this process was a rushed one, stating that the document relating to the ‘Institutional Rate Policy’ which was presented at the last statutory meeting was not only discussed by the council on several occasions but was also gazetted in 2009 when now PPP/C Councillor, Patricia Chase-Green, was a part of the council, representing the PNC.
“This Institutional Rate Policy, it was only designed out of something that was put in place under the same Chase-Green… It was gazetted to have 25 per cent to be applied to those persons… It was gazetted in her time when she was a councillor here. It was approved sometime around 2009. It was discussed again in 2016 and it was advertised… I don’t know if she gets selective amnesia, [saying] that oh, we got to get by law and we got to get this…,” the Georgetown Mayor posited.
