JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Sunday, May 4, 2025

Faria urges Govt to pay VAT refunds

by

Kyron Regis
2039 days ago
20191004

CEO of the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, Gabriel Faria has called on the Gov­ern­ment to pay bil­lions of dol­lars it owes to the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty in the up­com­ing bud­get.

Speak­ing yes­ter­day on CNC3’s the Morn­ing Brew, Faria said: “One of

the things we’ve been go­ing to bed and pray­ing for every night, is that the fi­nance min­is­ter takes ac­tion on over­due VAT re­funds.”

He con­tin­ued: “When I lis­ten to the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, the one thing we are hop­ing for, is that he will put that in­to place in this bud­get.”

Faria said that he is con­fi­dent that Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert will do some­thing be­cause the un­paid VAT re­funds are hav­ing “a de­bil­i­tat­ing im­pact on busi­ness­es.”

Faria not­ed that it is hin­der­ing busi­ness­es as it re­lat­ed to in­vest­ment de­ci­sions, ex­ports and it is al­so “ty­ing up a lot of cash.”

“I would think that’s my num­ber one wish”, said Faria.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Faria not­ed that the Gov­ern­ment is still fo­cused on gen­er­at­ing rev­enue from the econ­o­my as op­posed to cre­at­ing an en­vi­ron­ment where the pri­vate sec­tor can pro­duce in­come.

He said that the pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ship mod­el needs to be em­braced to have a thriv­ing en­vi­ron­ment where the gov­ern­ment and busi­ness com­ple­ment each oth­er.

Faria added that Ja­maica is an ex­am­ple of this type of re­la­tion­ship.

Faria said that he hoped the Gov­ern­ment cre­ates an en­vi­ron­ment where busi­ness­es don’t have to wor­ry about bu­reau­crat­ic is­sues but will be able to earn for­eign ex­change.

Mean­while, Chair­man-elect Wade George, Ernst and Young Caribbean ad­mit­ted that he does not be­lieve that the prob­lem of for­eign change will be solved with­out dif­fi­cul­ty as it is a struc­tur­al prob­lem.

“I’m not sure that that prob­lem will be solved that eas­i­ly un­less we look at the un­der­ly­ing caus­es, which would be the short­age of for­eign cur­ren­cy in the sys­tem as a re­sult of the con­trac­tion in the en­er­gy sec­tor,” said George.

He added that the forex sit­u­a­tion will con­tin­ue to con­strain un­less there is a struc­tur­al change. In the past, George said the gov­ern­ment had in­ter­vened in the econ­o­my, in places where it did not fit.

George added that now, “be­cause rev­enues are shrink­ing, there’s a re­al op­por­tu­ni­ty for the gov­ern­ment to di­vest state as­sets.”

George not­ed that if it is done through a com­pet­i­tive and trans­par­ent process, it would gen­er­ate rev­enue for the gov­ern­ment. He said that it would al­so al­low for the pri­vate sec­tor to cre­ate new ser­vices for T&T and in turn bring ad­di­tion­al jobs and rev­enue to the coun­try.

He said that this is an op­por­tu­ni­ty in T&T that, neigh­bour­ing states do not have.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored