FEES TO INCREASE

AS the Government continues to strive to get the country back on a sustainable growth path, Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley said revising various government fees is likely to occur to assist in raising much-needed revenue.

However, Prime Minister Mottley contended that these fees will not be raised willy-nilly. She was speaking yesterday during the Barbados Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s first business luncheon for the year at the Hilton hotel, which was held under the theme ‘Envisioning 2020: The Path Towards a New Decade’.

“With that, we are still on target because we made decisions to be able to increase our taxes on land, assets and we made some adjustments to one or two other things in last year’s Budget. I believe that we are pretty steady. Some of the fees that we are going to have to deal with ... are fees that have not been touched for 20 years, 30 years, 40 years and it therefore means the delivery of the service is hampered.

If we try to bring the provision of those services back on to the central government, then this country will face continued erosion, and we are not going to do that at any cost,” she told the packed room of business leaders.

She said successive governments were unfortunately unwilling to confront the issue of fees and increase them by any amount. The PM made the point while using bus fares as an example, which she said had not been increased for more than a decade prior to her Government’s decision to do so last year. Mottley’s comments as she noted that having reduced the rates of corporation tax and putting domestic and international business companies in this country on equal footing, Government has collected considerably less revenue in that area, some $40 million and it is imperative that they find ways to meet that shortfall.

In that vein, she made it clear that additional taxation could not be ruled out, but said government was sensitive the condition of households and companies and the impact that increases in respect of taxes or fees could have on Barbadians. To that end, she stated that any steps taken will “not topple the apple cart”.

“I am not going to give any assurance to anyone that there will be no taxes or no increases - what I will say is that whatever increase there is, will be justified on the basis of prudence [and] stability. We are sensitive to the fact that we want to increase disposable income in this country because governments, don’t trade, governments don’t grow on their own; individuals do, companies do and if we tax them out of existence, nobody will grow.”

Additionally, questioned about further layoffs in the public sector, she said government cannot “insulate everybody at all times, for all reasons”, and therefore added that there is only one who could give the assurance that there would be no more layoffs – “the Divine”.

Referring then to the successes achieved under the Barbados Economic Recovery and Transformation (BERT) Plan, Mottley again called on Barbadians to stay the course and stay focused, as she maintained that the road to recovery is not a sprint.

“We knew that it could not be resolved overnight... I need everybody in here now, to help lift some weight and to do the investments,” she added. (JRT)