DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

The Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) is warn­ing Gov­ern­ment that it will not stop un­til this coun­try’s high­est court hears its case against the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty (TTRA).

PSA pres­i­dent Leroy Bap­tiste made the com­ment yes­ter­day, af­ter three po­ten­tial TTRA di­rec­tors were an­nounced in the Sen­ate.  

Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness Dr Amery Browne tabled three mo­tions in Par­lia­ment seek­ing ap­proval for the ap­point­ment of Pat­sy Latch­man-At­ter­bury as di­rec­tor gen­er­al of the TTRA; He­len Thomas-Brown as deputy di­rec­tor gen­er­al–Do­mes­tic Tax; and Ri­ad Ju­man as deputy di­rec­tor gen­er­al–Cus­toms and Ex­cise.

Ac­cord­ing to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty Act, the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance is re­spon­si­ble for ap­point­ing the di­rec­tor gen­er­al and the deputy di­rec­tors gen­er­al of the TTRA, sub­ject to af­fir­ma­tive res­o­lu­tion of Par­lia­ment. The deputy di­rec­tor gen­er­al–En­force­ment will, how­ev­er, a pub­lic of­fi­cer to be ap­point­ed by the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC).

Bap­tiste said while Gov­ern­ment was press­ing ahead with the es­tab­lish­ment of the Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty by ap­point­ing key of­fi­cials, the union will not sit idly by.

“We con­tin­ue to chal­lenge its con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty and we await the out­come, for this mat­ter will be re­solved at the lev­el of the Privy Coun­cil. So, we are fo­cused on chal­leng­ing this piece of law,” he said in a tele­phone in­ter­view.  

Bap­tiste al­so ac­cused Gov­ern­ment of seek­ing to have to­tal con­trol of civ­il sec­tor work­ers by strip­ping them of per­ma­nent em­ploy­ment through the TTRA.  

“This Gov­ern­ment has been on a ram­page in terms of just com­mand and con­trol (of) every as­pect of the so­ci­ety to the detri­ment of the work­ing class. That is some­thing we could not ever sup­port.

“All that you achieve by that is dis­rup­tion to the lives of work­ers, that work­ers would have to lose per­ma­nent jobs and try to take con­tracts with­in these en­vi­ron­ments and dis­rupt their lives. It is wrong and as you know, we have seen it hap­pen all over where there’s this con­tract prin­ci­ple, if some­body just runs afoul of the prime min­is­ter or who­ev­er else, they just bring an end to their liveli­hood. We’ve seen it hap­pen at the top in the up­per ech­e­lon, whether at the court, whether in the po­lice ser­vice. I’ll leave it at that.”

The TTRA is a se­mi-au­tonomous in­sti­tu­tion pri­mar­i­ly re­spon­si­ble for rev­enue col­lec­tion and en­force­ment, trade fa­cil­i­ta­tion and bor­der con­trol. This new body is a fu­sion of the In­land Rev­enue Di­vi­sion (IRD) and the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion (CED).

The TTRA al­so ad­vis­es the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance as it re­lates to all forms of tax­a­tion, cus­toms and ex­cise du­ties, rev­enue col­lec­tion and bor­der con­trols.

How­ev­er, the PSA pres­i­dent said the new au­thor­i­ty was ill-con­ceived and would fall vic­tim to the same in­ef­fi­cien­cies of oth­er state agen­cies.  

“Wher­ev­er we have had all these ‘re­struc­tur­ings’ we have seen no ev­i­dence of im­prove­ment in the con­text of the man­age­ment of this econ­o­my but here’s what we have seen–that work­ers’ lives have been dis­rupt­ed, that they have, in fact, gone out of their way to en­sure that per­ma­nent jobs are a thing of the past and that work­ers are un­able to or­gan­ise and plan their lives.”

The Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty Act was pro­claimed with an ef­fec­tive date of May 1, 2023, and was sched­uled to take ef­fect on Au­gust 1, 2023.

How­ev­er, the PSA, through its le­gal team led by for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, filed an in­junc­tion to block the op­er­a­tional­i­sa­tion of the au­thor­i­ty at the end of No­vem­ber 2023.

The Gov­ern­ment agreed to a re­quest by the PSA pres­i­dent to ex­tend the dead­line for the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the TTRA un­til the end of Feb­ru­ary 2024, giv­ing work­ers more time to make the manda­to­ry choice be­tween their cur­rent job and the TTRA.

Staff can ei­ther vol­un­tar­i­ly re­tire from the Pub­lic Ser­vice, trans­fer to the TTRA on terms and con­di­tions no less favourable than those en­joyed in the Pub­lic Ser­vice, be ap­point­ed by the PSC to the En­force­ment Di­vi­sion of the TTRA in a suit­able post, or re­main in the Pub­lic Ser­vice once an of­fice com­men­su­rate with the of­fice held be­fore the TTRA Act is avail­able.

Al­though the mat­ter is be­fore the Court of Ap­peal, Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that a judg­ment will not be de­liv­ered by the end of March 31.