THE Sectoral Debate continues this week with two of the most highly-anticipated contributions coming from Minister of Youth and Culture, Lisa Hanna, and Minister of National Security, Peter Bunting, on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively.

Hanna has been taking a lot of blame for the continued detention of juveniles in adult prisons, in breach of UN conventions against the practice, but the fact is that she is not really the minister responsible for the prisons and does not deserve much of the blame that she has been given over the past year.

Hopefully, the man who is, Bunting, will step up to the plate on Wednesday and deal with the issue as he should have done months ago.

But, Hanna has other issues on her hands, including the state of the children’s homes, the compensation for the girls who were the victims of the Armadale fire, the lack of resources at the Office of the Children’s Advocate and the Child Development Agency and, of course, the general policy on youth which seems to be offering too few incentives for the country’s young generation.

The Opposition affiliate, Generation 2000 (G2K), recently lashed out at her, claiming that she was not doing enough to reach out to youth in the country. G2K said that, while the nation marked Child Month in May, she was found wanting where her portfolio responsibilities were concerned.

Hanna also came in for some flak for the decision to suspend the annual Festival Song competition this year, probably the first time since 1966 when the popular event was introduced under Edward Seaga. It will be interesting to hear her explanation of why this decision was taken.

Opposition spokesperson on Youth, Sports, Gender Affairs, Entertainment and Culture, Olivia “Babsy” Grange, has constantly raised questions about the children’s issues. She has a motion on the Order Paper, asking for an urgent debate and adoption of the recommendations made by the Children’s Advocate recently to Parliament. Incidentally, Grange will respond on Wednesday.

It is unlikely that the contribution from any cabinet minister taking part in the Sectoral Debate will attract more attention than when Peter Bunting speaks on Wednesday.

With figures for major crimes, including murder rising sharply, it will take a lot from the minister to satisfy the anxieties of the public and to give them some assurance.

Bunting’s problems are not only with gunmen killing, robbing and raping sections of the population, but also the growing cases of praedial larceny threatening the agriculture sector.

It makes no sense for the minister to try and saturate the public with figures which do not match their realities. The public has been experiencing the crimes and are demanding some solutions and, incidentally, the enormous increases in the cost of police services announced recently have not helped.

Other speakers scheduled for this week are: Minister of State in the Ministry of Industry, Investment and Commerce, Sharon Ffolkes Abrahams and Opposition spokesman on Urban Renewal, Rural Development and Local Government, Desmond McKenzie on Tuesday; and, Minister of State in the Ministry of Tourism and Entertainment, Damion Crawford on Wednesday.

REVENUE ADMINISTRATION ACT

Another issue of enormous interest this week will be how the Minister of Finance and Planning, Dr Peter Phillips, handles the opposition’s demand that the government delay the vote on the Revenue Administration Act, which will give the Commissioner General of Tax Administration Jamaica (TAJ) additional powers, to allow for more consultations.

Phillips argued that the changes will facilitate more efficient and effective exercise of the powers of investigation, audit, assessment collection, and enforcement by TAJ, and improve the quality and usefulness of information supplied to TAJ by various parties on a periodic basis.

“Revenue authorities are currently restricted in their efforts to promote compliance in all sectors of the economy, because of their inability to collect and use information that is needed and to identify, register, audit and access certain taxpayers. Lack of information is acknowledged to be one of the main obstacles to tax collections, with some known sources of information being sealed off by the present laws,” Dr Phillips explained.

He said that there is a high rate of delinquency associated with the undetectable income-generating activities of unregistered persons.

“As the law now stands, there are too many opportunities for those who seek to evade taxes and find grounds of resistance to the tax authorities, in the form of the secrecy provisions that exists in the current legislation and the overly circumscribed narrow powers of the Commissioner General,” Dr Phillips stated.

The Bill will facilitate a more effective exchange of information with Jamaica’s treaty partners, under the various double taxation agreements. It will also ensure that the information provided will enable Jamaica to meet the international standards of transparency and exchange of information for tax purposes.

Phillips decided to delay the vote by a week, although obviously it would have been approved by the government’s majority in the House. But, he has been cautiously seeking bipartisan support for these measures, which are in line with the recent Extended Fund Facility (EFF) agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other multilateral conditions.

However, Opposition spokesman on finance, Audley Shaw and his colleagues, Opposition spokesman on Transport and Works, Karl Samuda, and tourism spokesman, Edmund Bartlett, are adamant that the Bill should not be passed until it has been reviewed by a bipartisan parliamentary committee, which can canvass the views of the public.

Bartlett has suggested that it be sent to the tax committee, while Shaw and Samuda suggested a joint select committee.

Shaw noted that the House only had a week to study the Bill and added that, notwithstanding the urgency from either the IMF’s or the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) insistence on meeting certain international requirements, there was also the issue of the wider powers it would give to the commissioner general of taxes which needs fuller discussion.

He said that, in addition to increasing and widening the powers of the tax commissioner, the Bill will facilitate access to information available from various parties, as well as the exercise of the tax administration department’s investigative, audit assessment and enforcement powers.

“I really believe that a piece of legislation of this magnitude that has the potential impact that it has, should be referred to a committee of this House for more careful examination,” he insisted.

But, Dr Phillips said that the government does not have time for the bill to pass through the committee process, and believes that a week’s adjournment should be sufficient.

The fact is that the Bill really deserves a full study by a parliamentary committee but, the issue is, does the minister have the time?