Opposition Senator Damian Lyder is calling on the Finance Minister to come clean about the amount of money owed to manufacturers for VAT refunds.
Speaking during the Opposition United National Congress (UNC’s) press conference on Sunday, Lyder said businessmen have been calling for their refunds repeatedly, with no word from the Government as to when they will be paid.
Referring to articles in two daily newspapers, Lyder posed several questions of his own to the Finance Minister.
“My first question is what is the true and total value of VAT refunds outstanding?
How many billions are being owed? Is it three billion? Is it seven billion? Come clean. This is not your money. Tell the stakeholders how much is outstanding,” Lyder said.
He also wants Imbert to say when the Government intends to pay these outstanding refunds, asking what time frame the Government needs to have the funds available.
Lyder said the stakeholders deserve to know.
“Let me remind you that it’s not your money to hold, to keep, to use as an interest-free loan. You are writing the balance sheets of the private sector to artificially reduce the reported Government debt position. I’m stating it here,” he said.
Lyder said business owners cannot plan to expand and grow their operations without their refunds. He said by withholding the refunds, the Government was forcing business owners to make their investments outside of the country.
He also levelled accusations of nepotism against the Government, saying, “It has come to our attention that a chosen few businesses in this country who are aligned to this current PNM administration, who are financiers of this PNM political party, a few of the big boys, just a few, a chosen few are getting their VAT refunds expedited. Tongues are wagging around Port of Spain, I cast no aspersions, but we are hearing this.”
He called on Imbert to say whether there was any truth to these accusations and separate accusations that a preferential few were being given access to foreign exchange.
“Tell us who these businesses are and why they are getting preferential treatment. Because it appears that the only way you can survive in this economy, the only way you can grow and thrive is if you can rub shoulders…if you rub shoulders with senior government officials, that’s the only way to make it in this country,” Lyder said.
He said the Government needed to fix several crucial things relating to business for the economy to thrive, including improving the ease of doing business, equitable distribution of foreign exchange and paying VAT refunds.
“If this government cannot fix these three problems then any other proposal in their budget will fall barren, it will mean nothing,” Lyder said.
Guardian Media sent questions to Finance Minister Colm Imbert, seeking a response to Lyder’s statements. Although the messages were read, there was no response and subsequent messages could not be delivered to the Minister’s WhatsApp.