Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

UNC MP Sad­dam Ho­sein has cit­ed in­for­ma­tion that the prop­er­ty tax will be added to peo­ple’s month­ly HDC mort­gage in­stal­ment—but the Prime Min­is­ter, Pres­i­dent and Chief Jus­tice won’t be pay­ing prop­er­ty tax since they’re ser­vants of the state, oc­cu­py­ing state land and be­ing en­ti­tled to ac­com­mo­da­tion.

Ho­sein did so at the UNC’s Mon­day Night Re­port in Aranguez, San Juan.

He warned that if peo­ple vote for the PNM in Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tion, they’d be sup­port­ing pay­ing prop­er­ty tax.

“We must say no to prop­er­ty tax!” he stressed, adding the elec­tion was al­so about crime, job­less­ness and the econ­o­my.

Ho­sein said those li­able to pay the tax are those who own prop­er­ty (their land and build­ing) and squat­ters who are con­sid­ered to be an oc­cu­pi­er of the land. He said those own­ing HDC prop­er­ties will al­so pay prop­er­ty tax.

“I have a state­ment from Oc­to­ber 5, 2016, from Robert Green, the Chief Op­er­at­ing Of­fi­cer of TTMF, who said they would add the prop­er­ty tax to your month­ly mort­gage in­stal­ment. That in­stal­ment would in­crease, as they’re go­ing to ap­ply prop­er­ty tax to it,” Ho­sein said.

“If you own a res­i­den­tial prop­er­ty, (the tax) is three per cent of the rental val­ue. If it’s com­mer­cial, it’s five per cent, if you own agri­cul­tur­al lands, it’s one per cent, or in­dus­tri­al plant and ma­chin­ery, it’s six per cent—this is what the PNM is com­ing for you with if you vote for them on Au­gust 14!”

He added, “We’re solid­ly against this tax! The PP/UNC Gov­ern­ment did so much—built schools, po­lice sta­tions, in­fra­struc­ture, with­out a sin­gle new tax!”

He claimed the tax is al­so dan­ger­ous, since cor­po­ra­tions would be able to take pos­ses­sion of peo­ple’s be­long­ings to sell this to col­lect the tax if the per­son can­not pay.

He added they would al­so have for­feit pow­er to claim a per­son’s prop­er­ty to re­claim the tax.

“But, the Gov­ern­ment al­so made cer­tain ex­emp­tions where cer­tain peo­ple won’t have to pay prop­er­ty tax, “ Ho­sein added.

“You want to know who it is? Hear what Im­bert pass in the Par­lia­ment: he said an ex­emp­tion will be grant­ed for per­sons where land is be­long­ing to the state and is in oc­cu­pa­tion by the state and its ser­vants, where such ser­vants are en­ti­tled to ac­com­mo­da­tion by virtue of the of­fices they hold.”

Ho­sein con­tin­ued, “So you know who that means? That means Mr Prime Min­is­ter is not pay­ing prop­er­ty tax. That means Madame Pres­i­dent isn’t pay­ing prop­er­ty tax. That means the ho­n­ourable Chief Jus­tice isn’t pay­ing prop­er­ty tax.

“So all those big mar­vel­lous build­ings worth mil­lions of dol­lars—not a cent in prop­er­ty tax but Tan­ty who sell­ing in the par­lour, who will be charged a com­mer­cial rate of five per cent, try­ing to make a lil sale for the day, she might be re­lieved of the mon­ey by the crim­i­nals, but she has to go and find this mon­ey to pay prop­er­ty tax be­cause they could come and take all of Tan­ty be­long­ings and prop­er­ty.

“That is what they want us to vote for? We say no to PNM and prop­er­ty tax—we can­not in good con­science vote for a gov­ern­ment who wants to do this to the peo­ple of T&T!”

UNC deputy leader Roodal Mooni­lal al­so al­leged there was a plot to lock up a High Court judge whose rul­ings were crit­i­cal of Gov­ern­ment. He claimed in the com­ing days, the pub­lic would see is­sues un­fold­ing “where they’ll try to lock him up on friv­o­lous mat­ters.”

Mooni­lal asked how the Prime Min­is­ter could talk re­cent­ly about what an Ap­peal Court rul­ing may be.

“I call on the Chief Jus­tice: is the Prime Min­is­ter in touch with such judges?”

He called on the PM to clear the air on Al­lan Warn­er and “In­ez­gate,” and al­so on THA Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine’s ex­tor­tion al­le­ga­tions—and for the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er to probe the al­le­ga­tions.