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Last Updated: Feb 13, 2017 - 1:45:37 AM |
Youri Kemp: Our Finances are Worse off 5 Years Later – Something has to Give!
By Youri Kemp, DNA Spokesperson for the Economy and Finance
Feb 1, 2017 - 11:36:38 AM
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 We listened to a cringe-worthy interview that Minister of State for Finance, Michael Halkitis, gave on Guardian Radio 96.9FM’s “The Revolution” with host Juan McCartney, alongside Editor of The Nassau Guardian, Candia Dames.
We listened with interest to the way Minister of State Halkitis tried to sell his most recent convention speech, which at that time proved to be the talk of the town because of his supposedly “witty” catch-phrases and juicy sound-bites.
Aside from the cosmetic nature of some of the Minister’s offerings in his speech and in his interview with Mr. McCartney and Miss Dames, he had provided a bit more detail about his tenure as Minister of State for Finance. As a result of that, we in the DNA are now firm in our resolve that this administration’s tenure has been an unmitigated disaster that we are paying dearly for.
I think it safe to say that our finances and economy have gotten worse as we have gotten along in this Progressive Liberal Party administration. Not only are we suffering under the burdens of higher taxes, but we are deeper in debt in the process with little or nothing to show for the money that was spent.
What we in the DNA also find curious is the Minister’s statement on how the Constitution impedes his government’s ability to give us better accountability, particularly with regard to how Value Added Tax money is accounted for in the budget. We find his approach to explaining why there can’t be greater accountability on how we receive and track revenue to be juvenile. Sophomoric, at best!
For example, the Minister states that the Constitution in Article 128, disempowers him from delineating any sums of money for the express purposes of showing us where and how our tax money is collected and collated for our benefit.
However, in Article 128 of the Constitution, only expounds on how we deposit gross revenue into the Consolidated Fund, and not how we track and manage where it comes from and how. The Financial Administration and Audit Act outlines the regulations of how money is moved in and out of the Consolidated Fund, tracked and accounted for and can be further amended to allow The Minister of Finance to empower the “Principal Receivers of Revenue”, as set out in Article 7 of the Act, to differentiate what money comes from, where and how as there are already provisions laid out on how the issuing repayments, discounts and drawbacks are treated before the gross is remitted to the Consolidated Fund.
Further, Article 21 of the Act can be amended to be more inclusive as well and clear on the powers of the Minister to create and administer regulations with regard to the proper accounting, but we in the DNA feel this is fundamentally clear.
The Minister of State is clearly unaware of his own powers as it relates to his own Ministry and as a legislator and how he works with his parliamentary colleagues to provide legislation that helps us all as a party, and we in the DNA are frightened by their lack of movement to show more confidence in their administration as well as appalled by their cavalier approach to the matter.
The aforementioned amendments that we suggest to solidify the powers laid out in Article 7, to make it comprehensively clear that the first custodians of the public’s money, the Principal Receivers, can and will be made under a DNA government to allow them to be duly empowered to differentiate the diverse sums of money before it is remitted to the Consolidated Fund.
This simple amendment to Article 7, in spite of provisions already clear in Article 21 of the Act, can be done in Parliament by the next session because it is routine in nature, but this administration lacks the power, will and energy to do a good day’s work for Bahamian taxpayers.
The DNA has been asking for these very simply changes in the way we do business for the last 6 and a half years now. Nothing has changed except for the FNM government to a PLP government. They too will be changed by our next general election, 2017 to that of a DNA government headed by Senator Branville A. McCartney.
The DNA has called for the Central Revenue Agency to be established; We have called for a proper accounting of VAT and how it impacts Customs Revenue; We have been on record with regard to putting in place a Fiscal Responsibility Act; and we have been consistent with our demands for proper, weekly audits of what the government takes in and spends.
Nothing has changed with our approach in the DNA, and nothing will change except for the inept, lackadaisical and backward thinking regime that is the PLP by this next general election.
Youri Kemp
DNA Candidate for Garden Hills
DNA Spokesperson for the Economy and Finance
© Copyright 2017 by thebahamasweekly.com
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