The Op­po­si­tion and the me­dia took some heat on Sat­ur­day, as Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley blast­ed both for keep­ing the ar­gu­ment over tax ex­emp­tions for min­is­ters’ ve­hi­cles alive.

Row­ley de­fend­ed his min­is­ters’ right to pur­chase ve­hi­cles us­ing such ex­emp­tions, say­ing it was part of the agreed terms and con­di­tions of their job arrange­ments.

In fact, the Prime Min­is­ter said he too had used the fa­cil­i­ty to pur­chase a new ve­hi­cle.

Row­ley gave the re­sponse dur­ing the week­ly COVID-19 up­date, as he ad­dressed the re­cent con­tro­ver­sy in which En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young and Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh were crit­i­cised for pur­chas­ing lux­u­ry ve­hi­cles us­ing the ex­emp­tions.

Energy Minister Stuart Young

NICOLE DRAYTON

Ad­dress­ing pub­lic con­cern over the tim­ing of the pur­chas­es, giv­en that so many in the so­ci­ety were cur­rent­ly fac­ing hard­ship due to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, Row­ley said, "The one thing I want to be able to say to the coun­try when I leave this job is that I did not run a Cab­i­net of cor­rupt peo­ple who sought to steal Gov­ern­ment mon­ey for their ben­e­fit.

"It re­al­ly galls me when per­sons who can't say that, com­ing to take an is­sue with an ex­emp­tion that is part of your terms and what you do with the mon­ey you earn.”

The is­sue re­turned to the pub­lic do­main re­cent­ly af­ter it was re­vealed Young had used a $556,571.06 tax break on the pur­chase of a Mer­cedes Benz GLE 450 while Deyals­ingh got $390,166.63 in ex­emp­tions on a Toy­ota Land Cruis­er Pra­do pur­chase.

The PM added, "I could tell the coun­try now that I bought a ve­hi­cle be­cause I dri­ve my­self and as part of the terms of en­gage­ment for a job I do 24 hours a day, I ac­cept the terms of en­gage­ment.

"And if it dis­pleas­es some peo­ple, I am sor­ry. But I don't think it is fair for some­body to tell me what to do with what I earned, when you have no in­ter­est in talk­ing to those who have stolen pub­lic mon­ey and you have no in­ter­est in that.”

Row­ley said he has not seen any ed­i­to­ri­als ques­tion­ing the Op­po­si­tion about their spend­ing and those "who are be­fore the court for steal­ing pub­lic mon­ey."

He said he has seen pic­tures of one for­mer mem­ber of the Op­po­si­tion pro­vid­ing food for needy peo­ple.

"Prob­a­bly with the very same mon­ey they have to an­swer for in the cour­t­house. That does not make the news, but I see the press in­ter­est­ed in a com­ment from a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment about min­is­ters’ cars, in­clud­ing my own, bought with my own mon­ey," Row­ley said.

The Prime Min­is­ter said the same MP, who was re-elect­ed to serve, was named 113 times in a court mat­ter.

"Last year Oc­to­ber, this mat­ter came up and it was the sub­ject of an ed­i­to­r­i­al. It came up dri­ven large­ly by mem­bers of the Op­po­si­tion and I did say at the time, that if the abuse that we had seen then is what is tak­ing place, I would ask the Cab­i­net to con­sid­er whether there should be some cap­ping on the ex­emp­tion," the PM said.

Row­ley said that he did, in fact, look at cap­ping the ex­emp­tions last year and sought le­gal ad­vice.

"The le­gal ad­vice was that these were peo­ple's terms of en­gage­ment and you have no au­thor­i­ty to in­ter­fere with it," he said.

He said that there were dif­fer­ent lev­els of tax ex­emp­tions and while some pub­lic ser­vants were en­ti­tled to one, oth­ers re­ceived two and three breaks “de­pend­ing on your terms of en­gage­ment.”

He re­called that un­der the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship, one for­mer min­is­ter used tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey to pur­chase a Mer­cedes Benz un­der the Min­istry of Hous­ing and an­oth­er un­der the Min­istry of Food Pro­duc­tion who pur­chased a Porsche Cayenne. An­oth­er he said, crashed a Toy­ota Pra­do.

"And I am sure you for­got the two Range Rovers with the same chas­sis num­ber. I don't see any ed­i­to­r­i­al with that so you pick­ing and choos­ing what is the is­sue,” he said of the me­dia.

In a Guardian Me­dia re­port Back in 2016, Row­ley had said his Cab­i­net made a de­ci­sion that none of its mem­bers would ac­cess any loan to buy a lux­u­ry ve­hi­cle which falls in the new in­creased tax brack­et.

At that time Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert had im­posed a 50 per cent in­crease in tax­es on lux­u­ry ve­hi­cles with en­gines over 1999cc in a se­ries of sweep­ing tax mea­sures.

Row­ley said if it was the pol­i­cy of the coun­try, then it ap­plied to all.

At the time he said fu­el costs were in­creas­ing the whole coun­try should be con­cerned about how fu­el con­sump­tion.