Man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Caribbean Chem­i­cals Joe Pires is ac­cus­ing Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert of cre­at­ing prob­lems for lo­cal chem­i­cal im­porters by an­nounc­ing the Gov­ern­ment's pro­pos­al to make ap­proved chem­i­cals and pes­ti­cides tax and du­ty ex­empt, be­gin­ning next Jan­u­ary.

Pires said Im­bert's state­ment had led farm­ers to query chem­i­cal im­porters as to how much they were go­ing to re­duce the cost of chem­i­cals, which they sold to agri­cul­tur­al shops.

Pires said he be­came per­plexed and con­fused by Im­bert's an­nounce­ment since du­ties and VAT on all agri­cul­tur­al chem­i­cals were waived years ago.

"His (Im­bert's) state­ment has cre­at­ed a lot of prob­lems for com­pa­nies like us that im­port chem­i­cals. Now farm­ers are ask­ing us what is our new pric­ing and when are the prices com­ing down. But there has nev­er been any du­ties or VAT on agri­cul­ture chem­i­cals. I don't know what the min­is­ter is talk­ing about."

In pre­sent­ing the bud­get, Im­bert stat­ed that he would ex­empt from all du­ties and tax­es in­puts in­to the agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor, in­clud­ing ap­proved chem­i­cals, pest con­trol, ap­proved ve­hi­cles, ap­proved fish­ing ves­sels and equip­ment, which will take ef­fect on Jan­u­ary 1, 2016.

Caribbean Chem­i­cals is one of the coun­try's largest chem­i­cal im­porters.

Man­ag­er of Carlsen Chem­i­cals Ltd Ka­mal Hakim al­so ad­mit­ted that farm­ers called his Cara­pichaima busi­ness to find out "what is go­ing to hap­pen now."

Hakim said as long as he could re­mem­ber there had been no du­ty and VAT on agri­cul­ture chem­i­cals that came in­to Trinidad.

"That is the law."

Pires said when VAT was in­tro­duced over 20 years ago by the then Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion (NAR) ad­min­is­tra­tion "no VAT was put on agri­cul­ture chem­i­cals. The gov­ern­ment at the time re­alised that the cost of chem­i­cals to the farmer would have amount­ed to 60 per cent of their in­puts and labour. They need­ed to keep food prices down in or­der for farm­ers to be com­pet­i­tive."

In the com­ing days, Pires said, chem­i­cal im­porters would is­sue a state­ment to Im­bert to clear the air on the mat­ter.

"We are hop­ing that this is­sue will be ad­dressed," Pires said, "be­cause it's caus­ing a lot of con­fu­sion with the im­porters."

Price goug­ing

Fol­low­ing the bud­get, Pires said, he al­so heard that some agri­cul­tur­al shops had be­gun to in­crease the prices of chem­i­cals.

Pires ac­cused the shops of price goug­ing and "try­ing to make a fast buck" at a time when the coun­try was fac­ing a down­turn in the econ­o­my and cit­i­zens were asked to tight­en their belts.

Plum Mi­tan rice farmer Han­sraj Ram­lal said from Tues­day, a 110-pound bag of urea which he orig­i­nal­ly paid $200 for had in­creased to $225.

Ram­lal said a three-litre bot­tle of Amine, a se­lec­tive weed­i­cide, which he us­es on his 300-acre farm, had sky­rock­et­ed from $125 to $145.

Pires said these busi­ness­men had no rea­son to in­crease their prices since chem­i­cal com­pa­nies would de­liv­er goods to their shops when an or­der was placed.

He said the own­ers were cap­i­tal­is­ing on the hike in the price of gaso­line, which moved from $2.70 to $3.11 per litre, and of diesel, which in­creased from $1.50 to $1.73, and tak­ing ad­van­tage of farm­ers.

"This is price goug­ing. This should not be hap­pen­ing. In most cas­es we de­liv­er to the shops. We have not raised the prices of our chem­i­cals even though fu­el has gone up. And we have no in­ten­tion of rais­ing our prices. So why should they raise theirs?" Pires said he was will­ing to work with Im­bert to help im­prove the agri­cul­ture sec­tor.

Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Ma­rine Re­sources Avinash Singh said Gov­ern­ment was con­sid­er­ing im­port­ing some en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly safe chem­i­cals that are al­ready on the ap­proved list by Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion.

Singh said oth­er coun­tries that sold these chem­i­cals im­posed du­ties and tax­es, which Im­bert would waive for the buy­ers and im­porters.

(SH)