By NATARIO McKENZIE
Tribune Business Reporter
nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net
The Minister of Finance yesterday admitted that the Government has been forced to delay removing Value-Added Tax (VAT) from ‘breadbasket’ items and certain services, as the country’s fiscal woes required a more conservative approach.
Following delivery of the 2017-2018 Budget communication, K P Turnquest said: “That’s not going to happen immediately. That’s one of the trade-offs that we have to make because we recognised that, for instance, the Ministry of Works overspent by $75 million in this last year.
“We immediately, literally two days ago, had to say wait a minute; let’s be conservative before we go out and give concessions. Let’s make sure that we have the house covered.”
He added: “We’re already borrowing $323 million. We don’t want to give an unrealistic expectation and have to come back in the mid-year or sometime during the year to borrow more. Again, I ask the Bahamian people to bear with us as we try to get the fiscal house in order.”
Mr Turnquest also foreshadowed “some restructuring” at the Ministry of Finance. “One of the things we are going to have to do at the Ministry of Finance is engage in some restructuring,” he said.
“It is unusual that there isn’t one agency that can tell you what all of the commitments are. We are getting information from all over the place, and that just cannot work for effective fiscal management.”
Before the election, the FNM promised it would remove VAT on breadbasket items, education, water and light bills, medicine, healthcare and insurance.
Comments
birdiestrachan 6 years, 9 months ago
They told lies to win an election , they were told by the experts at home and internationally it was not a sound fiscal policy, But they continued to lie and fool those who allowed themselves to be fooled.
The_Oracle 6 years, 9 months ago
VAT had a successful implementation because the Private sector collects it! (and Government seems to have found the stick it wouldn't wield on itself!) Rather than undermine or complicate VAT, reduce the duty rates as scheduled to do by 2025 anyway, which is what triggered the implementation of VAT in the first place, Per WTO requirements and Government negotiations.
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