Dear Editor,
Please allow me my 2 cents to comment on the chaos surrounding the “dissident four” in the Budget vote. I am very sorry but, obviously, the four brought this on themselves. They all claim they had constituency meetings and came away from those meetings, apparently, with instructions to not support a VAT increase of 4½ cents. Those members returned to the House and stated they had received instruction from their constituents to vote against the VAT. At this point the four should have made no further comment and at the time of the vote should have abstained. I acknowledge they would still have suffered penalties as, I understand, there was a Whip on the vote, but they would not have appeared to be turncoats within their own party. Another question comes to mind, however, exactly how representative were those meetings of the entire constituency, never forget Messrs. Chipman and Robinson became FNM MP’s in what had always been really staunch PLP seats?
I am confident that this whole furore could have been nipped in the bud if Dr. Minnis and Mr. Turnquest had spoken out immediately the PLP started their disingenuous campaign to frighten the populous with talk of 60%+ increase in VAT as that sounds far worse than the actuality – 4½ cents on a $1 or, put another way, if you have $200 to spend in a week the extra VAT cost would be $9, which could possibly be recouped in the savings given back in vat-free bread-basket items and one or two other givebacks. Unfortunately the screams from the market place drowned out any quieter words of wisdom.
Turning to the Gaming Tax increase, again protests staged by PLP rabble rousers, but the way the announcements were made was badly handled. I will mention that a good friend of mine, who is involved in the industry, felt that yes the increases were just but, perhaps, they should have been brought in over a 2 year period. On further consideration, however, I would contend that the web shop owners heaved a mighty sigh of relief when the tax increases were announced as it would appear that rather than admit they had dramatically over-expanded and would have to announce layoffs they are now able to blame the tax increases for the layoffs; just think about it the increases are not even law yet and the web shops are shedding staff now!
H Armbrister
June 23, 2018
