‘NOT TAXES’
OPPOSITION Senator Caswell Franklyn charged yesterday that the Government has been collecting the increased bus fare illegally for over a year and says heads should roll for this misstep.
Franklyn was at the time speaking yesterday during the debate on the Transport Authority (Validation) Bill 2020 Public Transport and the (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2020.
Franklyn maintained that a minister cannot raise bus fares in a budget. “A budget is for taxes. Where you can collect a tax, you can increase a tax or introduce a new tax. Bus fares are not taxes. So you cannot raise bus fares in a budget.
But even if you could, the Government would have had four months in which to bring legislation to Parliament to validate what the minister spoke in the budget.”
He referred to the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act, which he said is the act that enables the Minister to come to Parliament and speak a tax into law.
“If you look at the interpretation section of the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act, it says tax includes all assessment, charges, duties, fees, rates, impositions and other levies, however called; the proceeds of which are payable into the Consolidated Fund as part of the revenues into Barbados.
“I do not know if at the end of the day people who collect bus fares take them and put them in the Consolidated Fund. That is the only way it could be a tax.
“What must be done and I have seen it before, where the Minister announces that there would have been a bus fare increase immediately after the budget, the Order was laid in Parliament. So it wasn’t really raised in the budget, it was raised in the Order that came immediately after the budget. He just announced it in the budget and let people know this is what we are going to do.
“We have a situation where the Minister without necessarily checking the law, imposes an increase in bus fares. That means from April 15 last year, the people in this country have been paying increased bus fare without any lawful authority.
“There has been no law in place that would have given the bus companies permission to collect bus fare. I ain’t see anybody marching down Broad Street talking about this. These are things that
affect the black lives in this country, you know. These are the poor people who pay bus fare and I didn’t see anybody get up and march.”
It is against this backdrop that the Opposition senator criticised the Government’s management of the country’s affairs. “We have a government out of control,” he opined.
“That is doing whatever it likes. Without any restraint. We know what that is. You are abusing your majority and you are doing whatever you like and then figure you can pass a Validation Bill. You cannot validate this!” he exhorted.
“It cannot be validated. Let me explain to you why. You cannot raise bus fare, so you are actually causing people, the Transport Board and others to take away people’s money, money is property, without due process of law. Now you must compensate persons... the only thing you could do is pay back the bus fare. But how are you going to do that? It is virtually impossible. It is impossible because when you get in a bus and you pay, you don’t keep receipts.
“There is no authority to charge $3.50, and we have a very passive society that goes along and lets this Government do as it likes. I’m not questioning the will of the people of this country. They elected a government and they gave them all of the seats. But at the same time, you must recognise that you have an awesome responsibility to govern with wisdom first. You must realise that when you are given this type of responsibility, you cannot abuse it. There is some saying about from whom much is given, much is expected. We do not expect the Government to behave like this.
“You must apologise to the country for this. You must apologise to everybody who has paid the additional $1.50 since last year and say, ‘Sorry, we made a mistake.’ You don’t come in here and just wave it over and say you validate this. This is an illegality. You must validate a tax. This is not a tax.
“Some head should roll for this. The Minister should find out who is responsible and deal with them,” he maintained.
Senator Franklyn also complained that each legislator is entitled to receive a copy of the Laws of Barbados. “I have not received mine in two years, but I go on Parliament’s website and I look to see when these bills come before me to see if I can use the information on the website, but sometimes they are not updated.”
Senator Franklyn said he must be given the tools to do the job, which he takes very seriously.