Gail Alexan­der

Bring it on to­mor­row.Is­su­ing that call to Gov­ern­ment yes­ter­day, Op­po­si­tion MP Dr Bhoe Tewarie said the Op­po­si­tion was pre­pared to work through to­mor­row, when the sec­ond ses­sion of Par­lia­ment be­gins, and the week­end to pass the con­tro­ver­sial Tax In­for­ma­tion Ex­change Agree­ment Bill.

This is nec­es­sary to im­ple­ment the For­eign Ac­count Tax Com­pli­ance Act (FAT­CA) be­tween T&T and the US be­fore the Sep­tem­ber 30 dead­line. Tewarie, at a Port-of-Spain me­dia brief­ing, said the Op­po­si­tion had no rea­son to want to de­lay the Bill since UNC sup­port­ers were among the gen­er­al pub­lic who would be af­fect­ed by the halt of on-line trad­ing, cred­it card op­er­a­tions and fund­ing trans­fers, if the it was not passed.

He and oth­er Op­po­si­tion MPs replied to ac­cu­sa­tions by Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley at a PNM meet­ing on Tues­day when Row­ley blamed the Op­po­si­tion for lack of ac­tion on the Bill. Gov­ern­ment had in­di­cat­ed it would bring the Bill af­ter the 2017 bud­get de­bate (in Oc­to­ber).

"But the Op­po­si­tion has said umpteen times it wants to pass this Bill. We can com­plete it be­fore the 2017 bud­get de­bate be­gins.

"We are pre­pared to start work as soon as Par­lia­ment be­gins Fri­day and work through the week­end, Sat­ur­day, Sun­day. The Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee (JSC) which we had pro­posed to ex­am­ine the bill, can be com­plet­ed in that time be­fore the bud­get," Tewarie said.

Ac­cus­ing Gov­ern­ment of wast­ing time on the mat­ter, Tewarie said the Op­po­si­tion had called for the JSC on Sep­tem­ber 9 and the process could have start­ed then.But, he said, Gov­ern­ment ad­journed Par­lia­ment un­til Sep­tem­ber 14 and de­bate con­tin­ued but Par­lia­ment was pro­rogued the same day.

"At every in­stance we want­ed to pass the Bill be­fore the dead­line. We vot­ed against ad­journ­ment of Par­lia­ment and we vot­ed to save work done on the bill in the last ses­sion and con­tin­ue it in the up­com­ing ses­sion.

"No­body wants to pass this bill more than us. We are will­ing to work on it AS­AP. Gov­ern­ment should have worked with us to pass it in­stead of reck­less­ly say­ing they would seek ex­ten­sion of the dead­line with the US be­fore they knew if they could get it," Tewarie added.

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Ger­ald Hadeed, deny­ing the UNC was afraid of tax scruti­ny, said: "If the Gov­ern­ment is se­ri­ous about this Bill, they will start work im­me­di­ate­ly as we are pre­pared to."

Op­po­si­tion MP Su­ruj Ram­bachan said 12 days of work had been lost on the Bill by Gov­ern­ment's "politi­cis­ing" of the is­sue . He urged Gov­ern­ment to stop "bul­ly­ing," blam­ing the Op­po­si­tion and bring the Bill to­mor­row (Fri­day) if it was se­ri­ous­ly con­cerned about the pub­lic in­ter­est.

He ac­cused Gov­ern­ment of blam­ing the Op­po­si­tion and us­ing the FAT­CA is­sue as a dis­trac­tion from its "mis­man­age­ment of T&T.

He said the PM's state­ments were set­ting the stage for harsh bud­get mea­sures on the pub­lic but the Op­po­si­tion's bud­get replies would in­clude ways of man­ag­ing the re­ces­sion.

Tewarie said the PM should have ex­plained, among oth­er things, the im­pli­ca­tions of the ex­pect­ed $50 bil­lion 2017 bud­get for rev­enue, ex­pen­di­ture cuts and so­cial im­pact so cit­i­zens could be bet­ter pre­pared.

He ex­pressed con­cern the IMF's re­cent state­ment about the un­der­val­u­a­tion of the T&T dol­lar could af­fect con­fi­dence since cit­i­zens were al­ready in­se­cure and un­cer­tain. He warned mi­gra­tion and move­ment of funds could en­sue.