Audley Shaw wraps up budget debate today
KINGSTON, Jamaica — Finance Minister Audley Shaw is to wrap up the 2017/2018 budget debate this afternoon at Gordon House.
He is expected to maintain the Government’s hard line on its 2017/18 tax package, which has been severely criticised by the Opposition and has elicited strong disapproval from key players in some sectors of the society.
Shaw made his first presentation to the debate on March 9, after which he was followed by Opposition spokesman on finance, Dr Peter Phillips, who argued on March 14 that the budget tabled by the finance minister did not advance the country’s economic reform programme, adding that Shaw was “robbing the poor to pay the rich”.
Leader of the Opposition, Portia Simpson Miller, on March 16, made her contribution to the debate chastising the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Government over their “unjust, counterproductive” tax package, which she said had “no heart”.
Then, Prime Minister Andrew Holness in his contribution yesterday argued that opponents of the $13.5-billion tax package announced two weeks ago failed to recognise that the measure will result in no change in the amount of revenue, which will go to the Government’s coffers.