The GRA should collect from the private sector what it is due

Dear Editor, As the 2017 budget street level debate rages, the private sector has weighed in repeatedly with a succession of dirges and angled self-serving critiques. The problem is that the carefully crafted attempts to continue to pull the wool over the eyes of the Guyanese public have only contributed to greater ridicule before a mass of knowing sceptics. I elaborate.

First, there is a private sector, and then there is another private sector. One is real and the other is this great unending pretence at being a bona fide ethical occupant of legitimate space, of honest business. The real private sector is about established blue chips and a surrounding cast of proven enduring entrepreneurs; the most charitable thing that could be offered for the other well-populated group ‒ the masqueraders ‒ is that it is a commercial sacrilege pretending to have suddenly found religion and living in the light. It is not, never did; thus there is this sharp disgust with the cries of professional mourners. Hear some of their unpersuasive wails.

Recordkeeping is onerous; it is burdensome. What was not shared with a critical public is that genuine recordkeeping leaves a trail. It is a revealing trail of source of seed capital, purposely inflated revenue streams, imaginary (also inflated) expenses, and countless undeniable cases of tax evasion waiting for the discovery.

It is believed in respectable and authoritative circles that the tax evasion alone could amount to tens of billions of dollars conservatively; I have heard another zero added at the end of that cluster of digits that is lost to the national treasury. The word is leakage. Businesspeople have outlined to me the under-invoicing that is prevalent and condoned, and that makes their own endeavours non-competitive and one monumental struggle to get by. All that a reasonable citizen has to do is think container and then ponder over how much under-invoicing can occur (and does) and the drain on this country. It is a haemorrhage.

It is why I am calling on the new Commissioner-General, of whom I keep hearing sturdy things, to insist on the collection of what is legally due by getting to the bottom of what has to be the biggest frauds inflicted upon this society. Mr Statia’s people must unravel the double entry (Guyanese style: think multiple books) and expose the perpetrators. Incidentally, it is this same sector which is now in the vanguard of the resistance to some of the budget proposals, while sheltering under some of the flimsiest and laughable cloaks that they can find. Perhaps, that is what they sell. While I am at this point, I am for garnishment, once done according to procedures and the focus is on real wrongdoing, and not manufactured ones. As an example, I am subject to garnishment proceedings in three jurisdictions (including here), and I welcome such. Complaints and resistance do not follow, if there is powerful certainty in the aboveboard nature of one’s conduct.

Hence, I look with great scorn on those complaining about the existence of provisions for such proceedings.

Editor, I have already gone on record in openly disagreeing with some components of the budget, and particularly as it relates to VAT on electricity and the potential effects on the regular citizen, and the overall economy in short order. I foresee the hurt coming on the working poor and the honest poor. Having said this, it has come to my attention that some members of the same complaining private sector have already adjusted prices upwards. This is pre-budget passage. But it is happening right now. Some might term it good business, I call it a continuation of the commercial banditry that was allowed to become the scourge that it is. Let me be clear: there are clean and law abiding businesspeople here, except that discovering them is the equivalent of encountering a camel in the sands of local streets.

This is why part of my ongoing concern is that the VAT proposals provide convenient camouflage for more profiteering. For instance, a non-manufacturing business has a new monthly electricity bill of, say, one million dollars in actual usage. That would amount to a charge of one hundred and forty thousand dollars in VAT, once official. Now that same business might have a monthly revenue stream of approximately ten million dollars. Some in that boat (or whatever the number is) could seize the opportunity to place a minimum 14% increase on everything in their shop that is offered to consumers. Repeat every single item. This means that some of the same breast-beating, hair pulling private sector crowd could end up with a gain of one million, four hundred thousand dollars (10 million revenue X 14% VAT). Thus, the extension and likely result of that VAT increase would profit the schemers in excess of a million dollars monthly. So, these folks win all the time, handwringing and crying notwithstanding. I have heard about Nile crocodiles; somebody should study the Guyanese ones in Georgetown and related business environs.

For too long, the white collar lawlessness has afflicted this nation from under the cathedral of private sector. It is not all white as some would believe, as there is the sanguinary side, too. Already, there is gearing up to capitalize and squeeze the vulnerable and the captive. I look forward to real concerted action being implemented to obtain for the treasury what is rightfully due. This cannot be all about government; citizens and citizens watchdogs must be involved, and must commit to ongoing scrutiny, close scrutiny of behaviours that follow the budget passage.

Yours faithfully, GHK Lall