Prime Min­is­ter Roo­sevelt Sker­rit Wednes­day said that the gov­ern­ment will un­der­take a fur­ther re­view of the is­land’s min­i­mum wage and would al­so be mov­ing to­wards re­duc­ing cor­po­ra­tion tax­es this year.

“I would say to you with re­spect to the econ­o­my, our rev­enue for the first six months for the fi­nan­cial year 2024-25 is bet­ter than the same pe­ri­od 2023-24,” Sker­rit said dur­ing a life in­ter­view with the state-owned DBS ra­dio.

‘Our rev­enues are do­ing much bet­ter in this fi­nan­cial year so far than it did in the pre­vi­ous fi­nan­cial year which is a sign that mon­ey is be­ing spent in the econ­o­my.

“We have seen an in­crease in cor­po­rate tax in Do­mini­ca and this is why we are look­ing at in 2025 at ad­dress­ing the cor­po­rate tax and re­duc­ing it from what it is now 25 per cent…so that we can keep more mon­ey in the pri­vate sec­tor’s had hope they can in­vest more so we can in­crease the tax base of the coun­try,” Sker­rit told ra­dio lis­ten­ers.

He said in 2025, his ad­min­is­tra­tion is look­ing at a “fur­ther re­view of the min­i­mum wage so to al­low per­sons who are re­liant on the min­i­mum wage pay­ment sched­ule to be able to be giv­en a bet­ter pay so as to be in a bet­ter po­si­tion to with­stand the in­crease in the price of goods and ser­vices in Do­mini­ca”.

Sker­rit ac­knowl­edged that the cost of goods and ser­vices had in­creased over the past few years, but said that this was not a sit­u­a­tion con­fined to Do­mini­ca alone, but to many coun­tries across the globe.

“…go to Aus­tralia, they will say the same thing, go to Chi­na they will say the same thing. Y coun­try in the world you go to now, peo­ple will have com­plaints and le­git­i­mate ones. The re­al­i­ty is the cost of goods on the shelves across the world is a ma­jor pre-oc­cu­pa­tion with every sin­gle gov­ern­ment and every sin­gle cit­i­zen”.

He re­called dur­ing the last pres­i­den­tial elec­tion in the Unit­ed States, there were calls for price con­trols in a free mar­ket econ­o­my.

“Ob­vi­ous­ly, the can­di­dates had to back track be­cause there is a back­lash on this …con­trary to the spir­it of a free mar­ket econ­o­my and in any event it is very dif­fi­cult to have price con­trol on every item on the shelf.

“So it is a huge chal­lenge for this coun­try and what we try to do in Do­mini­ca …is not to im­pose any re­al di­rect tax­es on peo­ple, en­sure that we con­tin­ue to in­vest in those ma­jor projects so that peo­ple can have work.”

Sker­rit said that the gov­ern­ment would con­tin­ue to in­vest in hous­ing so as to make it more af­ford­able to Do­mini­cans.

He told ra­dio lis­ten­ers that the gov­ern­ment is al­so un­der oblig­a­tion to pay the var­i­ous tax­es for goods and ser­vices and that’s why in some in­stances “you hear gov­ern­ment might be ow­ing a ser­vice provider or two.

“The cost of run­ning Do­mini­ca in­creased dra­mat­i­cal­ly be­cause of the cost in the rise of goods and ser­vices. We pay the tax­es as every cit­i­zen in Do­mini­ca, we don’t get VAT (Val­ue added tax) free as a gov­ern­ment, we pay VAT….,” he added.

But Sker­rit said he be­lieves that once the world can sta­bilise “and we get rid of this war be­tween Rus­sia and Ukraine to al­low for more grains tp be ac­ces­si­ble by the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty and we could get out of this sit­u­a­tion with Is­rael and Hamas and we are see­ing some sta­bil­i­sa­tion tak­ing place in Syr­ia…we can see some re­duc­tion of the cost of liv­ing im­pact on peo­ple.

“We will be able to buy more with the dol­lar and ease the pres­sure on peo­ple,” Sker­rit said, adding that in the mean­time it would al­so be un­sus­tain­able for the gov­ern­ment to sub­si­dize the price of goods and ser­vices.

“In any event you will not be able to af­ford it for any long pe­ri­od of time” he said, not­ing that re­gion­al coun­tries have been mak­ing one-off con­ces­sions, par­tic­u­lar­ly around the Christ­mas sea­son so as to ease the ef­fect of the cost of liv­ing on their pop­u­la­tions.

ROSEAU, Do­mini­ca, Jan 8, CMC