Dear Editor,

Mr. Gowon Bowe, chairman of The Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers Confederation was recently reported as sending a shot across government's bow, dressing them down about not answering matters raised by the private sector. The suggestion was that the government needed their help to implement VAT, but now it's in place they do not "need" the private sector.

The effort put in by the Coalition for Responsible Taxation was incredible and praiseworthy, but at the end of the day, the net result is the government did not relent on any major issue in the so called "negotiations" relating to VAT.

This is nothing new either. The private sector has "given in", or to be polite, "negotiated" itself into going along to get along now for far too many years. The long list of new laws and taxes have created an ever burgeoning state that gives virtually unlimited power to the bureaucrats and Ministers. The rule of law is fast becoming, no, has become, the rule of man.

In other words the private sector tax coalition was duped, like many "coalitions" throughout the years, and it's now painfully obvious that to think the private sector can"negotiate" policy with government isfoolhardy at best.

When will enough be enough for this leviathan we call our Government?