The Bustamante Industrial Trade Union (BITU) called yesterday for the scrapping of the 15 per cent General Consumption Tax (GCT) and says that it will agitate for a national debate to push the removal on the value-added levy that Jamaicans pay on most goods and services.

The BITU is aligned to the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and gets its name from its founder Sir Alexander Bustamante, who also founded the JLP and was Jamaica's first prime minister.

The union's proposal for the removal of the GCT came in a resolution passed at its biennial
national assembly at the Jamaica Conference Centre in downtown Kingston.

"The BITU and its membership, comprising workers of all sectors of the economy, will seek to initiate and agitate the process of national debate for the removal of this excessive burden of taxation of our hard earned income," the resolution said.

It was not immediately clear last night whether the resolution will find any traction in the JLP, whose leader, Edward Seaga, addressed yesterday's final day of the weekend conference.

However, the proposal takes added significance coming during the campaign for the general election which will take place here by year-end and in which at least two senior BITU officers will be candidates for the JLP.

The finance minister, Dr Omar Davies, was unavailable last night for comment on the resolution, but the BITU proposal will almost certainly get an immediate thumbs down from the administration, analysts said.

"It is impractical and unworkable in Jamaica's current fiscal situation," said one economist with close contacts to the administration. "Removal of the GCT would mean that you would have a huge hole to plug. Where would the compensatory revenue come from in the short-term?"

Introduced in the early 1990s, the GCT is projected in the current fiscal year to bring in approximately $28 billion or just over a quarter (26 per cent) of total taxation revenue.

The projected earning from GCT for the 2002/2003 fiscal year would mean an increase of about $3.8 billion or approximately 15.5 per cent more than the actual take for the previous financial year.

Only income tax, projected to bring in $43.655 billion this year, against last year's actual collection of $35.5 billion, earns more than GCT.

Analysts stressed last night that given Jamaica's current debt of about 134 per cent of gross domestic product -- the total value of goods and services produced in the country for a year -- giving up this level of revenue without a clear indication of what would replace it was unthinkable.

The problem, they said, was compounded by the fact that the public sector deficit -- between all the revenue that the government will earn and what it has to spend -- will be five per cent of GDP.

"If people are looking for breaks on the GCT, it would probably make more sense to ask for more products to be exempt or zero-rated," said one analyst.

The other resolutions passed called for:

* the immediate implementation of a new occupational health and safety act by the ministries of labour and social security, mining and energy;

* the Ministry of Labour to ensure that adequately trained staff are in place and that the BITU's existing claims be processed speedily and without further delay; and

* the Jamaica Public Service Company to take immediate steps for the completion of the agreed on job evaluation of all jobs within the company.

In his speech, Seaga expounded on the party's recently unveiled manifesto, highlighting in particular, plans which he said were geared at driving investments and creating more jobs for Jamaicans. He told the assembly that the Labour Party had in fact identified in excess of 30 projects capable of attracting major investments and creating new jobs.

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