Dear Reader,

Whether we recognise it or not, the budget debate now under way in Parliament reflects the deep socioeconomic and class divides that exist in the society, even when it is being presented within a very tight fiscal framework.

It was interesting to see how quickly the various interest groups began jockeying for space to put their arguments across and to make their cases for leniency — none of them, as far as I could hear, acknowledging the unbalanced burden that the poor will have to carry when the new tax measures are implemented.

Among the most vocal is the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA), which called an emergency meeting of their members to protest against the imposition of a new room tax on hotels. The JHTA says that their members cannot withstand any additional taxation at this time. The question is: Who can? Is there any sector in Jamaica that can withstand any additional taxation?

The problem with the discourse surrounding the budget proposals is that we are attempting to pursue it outside of the context of the persistent levels of differentiation and discrimination in the society and the predominance of special interest concerns and concessions.

There is no doubt that the tourism industry is a highly important sector within the Jamaican society and economy, particularly the role the industry plays in the business of job creation and sustainable employment, as well as being a critical foreign exchange earner.

But while the benefits from tourism are indisputable, there also has to be an appreciation of the sacrifices the taxpayers of Jamaica have made over many decades in supporting the industry, and the level of reciprocity that is now required to dig the country out of the current economic sinkhole.

Since Independence, the people of Jamaica have given numerous incentives, waivers, and tax benefits to the tourism industry, recognising how important the sector is to national development. What Jamaicans have a difficulty understanding is how it is that whenever it comes to the crunch, the tourism sector keeps insisting that it is not making money.

To my mind, the only way to alter what is clearly a trust deficit between the tourism industry and the people of Jamaica is for there to be a full and transparent audit of the industry. Short of that, there will continue to be resentment and reluctance for taxpayers to continue to subsidise the sector, and continued distrust regarding tourism earnings.

The banks are also crying foul. The Jamaica Bankers Association (JBA) has mounted its own protest against proposed new tax measures that the association describes as being grossly unfair and excessive. In a report in last Friday’s Jamaica Observer, the JBA is quoted as saying, “Considering the CIT at 33 per cent, the withholding tax on dividends of five per cent, and the asset tax — which equates to approximately five per cent of profits for some financial companies — the financial sector is being asked to pay a significant tax rate. This disparity threatens to jeopardise the retention of capital within, the flow of new capital into, and the overall competitiveness of the financial sector if it is prolonged.”

So is there anyone or any group prepared to make any sacrifice whatsoever? Is it just the poor that the sharpest end of the tax axe will fall on, and who will speak for them?

It is mind-boggling to me that the banking sector which has been making unbelievably high levels of profits, given the domestic and global recession, could be squealing about a five per cent withholding tax on dividends and a 0.2 per cent asset tax. For the record, the corporate income tax has now been reduced from 33 and onethird per cent to 25 per cent, a drop of eight and one-third per cent, and while that does not apply to certain financial institutions, it is a sizeable drop nevertheless, particularly when juxtaposed to taxes on books, patties and basic food items.

In my over 30 years of working with the poorest populations in Jamaica, I have never seen their plight as acute as it is now, including the frightening state of child poverty. The diet of the masses of Jamaican children is so poor it is unspeakable – cup soup, bag juice, cheese trix during the week, and chicken back, chicken and turkey neck on a Sunday. Some are not even that lucky.

And it is not just the dietary deficiencies. It’s also the portions. The children have to be content with whatever small amounts are cooked, and alternate as many are doing now with “dry food” every other day. The idea of the family buying a whole bread or a full bottle of oil, not to mention a whole chicken, is alien to many of our children and youth. A group of young men from an inner-city community simply put it this way, “Miss, we get used to hungry. A suh ghetto life run.”

Having made some significant strides in education over the decades, it is disheartening to see us return, as we have now, to the days when parents have to choose which one of the children to send to school on any given day for lack of bus fare and lunch money, and the hike on patties will only exacerbate the problem. In days gone by, it was the “brightest” child that got the break. It appears as if we are back there again.

In 1961 in his inaugural speech, the United States President John F Kennedy was prompted to make his famous declaration to his fellow Americans: “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” That appeal seems strikingly apropos for Jamaica at this critical juncture.

If Jamaica is going to survive, the private sector, the designated “growth engine” of the society needs to put the locomotive in full gear and come to the collective bargaining table as honest brokers, devoid of pride and self-interest, and powered instead by passion and patriotism.

What is required now is a unity of purpose and a tearing down of the barriers that have led to two large divides — the hotel rooms on the one hand, and the patty shops on the other.

With love,

bab2609@yahoo.com