Submitted by Wayne Cadogan
The recently implemented Municipal Solid Waste Tax will be a burden on most Barbadians because it will only affect a percentage of the population, mainly the middle class. It is true that when a government needs money to effectively run a country that they increase taxes, but this would be done across the board so that everybody would be tax and not just a few. We all know that Barbados is not a manufacturing country and depends solely on a fragile tourism and sugar industry to earn foreign exchange. The only other method to raise money to run the country and pay it’s multitude of foreign loans is to increase an already over burden tax society is to implement more taxes. Since all countries implement new taxes from time to time, it is expected by society that at some time their taxes will increase, but it is the manner in which it is done. In most countries, the government would go to public with a referendum or sensitize them regarding their intended plans to raise money through increasing or implementing a new tax. In Barbados case, the current government did neither of the two. The strategy used by the government is one of a dictatorial or strong arm method of imposing this new tax and which would not have gone down well in other countries. In some countries the public would be openly voicing their opinion through picketing, petitions to the government or marching to show their disapproval, especially regarding the manner in which it was done. What has happened to democracy in Barbados in recent years? Barbadians need to stand up for their rights and stop grumbling for nine days and sweeping things under the carpet and speak out, demonstrate, picket, bombard the press and boycott when their rights are being infringe on.
If the government had come to the people and stated beforehand that they have to raise the taxes or implement a new tax, the public outcry or backlash would not be as great, since the majority of the public understands that from time to time governments would have to increase or raise new taxes. In this case, this tax is an unfair tax since Barbados does not have a Waste Treatment Plant and the general public already pays taxes for the collection of their garbage.
Also, every occupied house has a well, a grease trap and in some cases a septic tank on its property which from time to time the occupant has to pay an independent contractor to draw off when it becomes over filled. I could understand if this tax was implemented for those on the South Coast who are connected to the sewerage system. Since Barbados does not have a Solid waste plant in place and this was discuss and implemented in Parliament two years ago, why is it that the government is now all of a sudden dropping this tax on the people like the way the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima? The government had plenty of time to sensitize the public regarding their plans to introduce this tax, or is it because the economy is so bad and that they are doing it as part of the reconstruction of the economy and to raise finances to help pay for its multitude of foreign debts that are either overdue or about to become due?
Since this tax does not affect the entire society, I would like to know who is paying the taxes for those tenants who are living in government houses areas free of cost and the upscale government houses which use as much or more garbage than the average household. What the government should have done was to introduce across the board a 0.1 % tax on every working individual salary so that everybody would be paying the tax. This would not have been too burdensome on the tax payer and in cases where there are multiple workers in a household, means that they would be paying more and it would balance back out evenly. If a person had to pay on a site value of $200.000.00 a 0.1 % tax, they would only have to pay $200.00 for the year by the number of people working in that house hold. Soon Barbados will become one of the most expensive places in the world to live because of its tax structure, which in turn will be a deterrent for returning nationals or others who might want to consider living here. The government cannot continue to raise taxes as a quick fix every time they need to raise money to bail out the country for one reason or another. The government needs to find new ways of raising funds and one of the main ways especially if it wants to save a fragile tourism industry from going under is to have two or three casinos, which should have been done years ago. The government has to bite the bullet with regards to the casinos, since a small selected few already control a plethora of one arm bandits on the island which they do not benefit from other than from a license fee. There are lots of other ways that the government can create jobs and in many cases save a lot of wasteful expenditure, however, I will leave that to the technocrats and experts to figure out since they are the ones being paid huge salaries and fees to run the country affectively.
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