The Joint Trade Union Movement (JTUM) will take serious umbrage to any initiative that will result in job losses, and plans to sign a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with the People’s National Movement (PNM) and Independent Liberal Party (ILP) stating its position and concerns with their proposed labour policies.
This was disclosed by JTUM leader Ancel Roget when asked by the T&T Guardian yesterday for his response to the T&T Revenue Authority (TTRA) the PNM is planning to establish if it wins the September 7 general election. The TTRA was proposed by the previous PNM administration to replace the existing Board of Inland Revenue and its stated purpose was to reform and modernise revenue administration to ensure quicker and more effective operations.
Public concerns were expressed that it would result in thousands of workers losing their jobs. Others felt the Board of Inland Revenue (BIR) would be privatised and modelled after the dreaded Internal Revenue Service (IRS) of the US. The Public Services Association (PSA) was among those protesting the Bill to implement the TTRA.
Roget, who has participated in demonstration marches with the PNM, said he did not want to give details of JTUM’s position on the matter at this time but before the end of this week they planned to sign a MOA with the PNM and ILP. “So we will have a document in hand to hold them to if they get into power,” he said. He said the MOA would contain JTUM’s position on labour and governance.
“We are going to have a general council meeting to examine the PNM and ILP’s labour and other policies in their manifestos. Our discussions will include the proposed Revenue Authority,” he added. Roget said after that meeting, JTUM would present its position to the two parties and sign the MOA. He said they would issue a media release after that was done.
Roget said their deliberations would not include the People’s Partnership since it was “already considered and discarded.” He dismissed the Government’s reformed Industrial Relations Authority Bill as a “surreptitious” attempt to decertify unions that went against it. Roget also said while the Government had been boasting it signed 131 collective agreements, there was a list of other outstanding negotiations to be settled.
That included workers represented by his union, the Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union from the T&T Electricity Commission, Petrotrin, National Petroleum, the University of T&T and the University of the West Indies, he added. Roget also claimed workers represented by the Bank and General Workers Trade Union, headed by JTUM member Vincent Cabrera, were yet to have their negotiations settled.
PSA president Watson Duke declined comment on the Revenue Authority on the grounds that he was conducting a political campaign and as a result whatever he said would be viewed as political. Asked about expected job losses with the introduction of the Revenue Authority, Duke said: “When the time comes the PSA will deal with that.”
Soon after the last PNM administration proposed the TTRA, the PSA had registered its protest against the expected dismissal of thousands of workers. Others feared the “privatising and personalising of revenue collection.” One blogger wrote: “It seems that there is a much bigger and more important issue which is tax collection will be privatised and Mr Manning (then prime minister) is the one who gets to appoint the directors of this board.”
It was believed the CEO of the TTRA would get directives on its daily operations from a board. Questions were raised about who would appoint that board.
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About the Revenue Authority
According to an online report, the TTRA will “signal the dawn of a new era in the service of tax and customs operations for this country.” It further stated: “The idea behind the Revenue Authority is that it establishes a platform that can enable reform and modernisation of revenue administration as against that which currently exists in the Inland Revenue Division (IRD) and the Customs and Excise Division (C&ED).
“It effectively removes the tax and customs administration from the public service and establishes a management board for oversight and accountability, facilitating the introduction of more modern human resources and other administrative practices. “The TTRA will carry out all the functions previously assigned to the IRD and C&ED, both of which will cease to exist.
“It will have the mandate to assess and collect taxes and duties, in addition to administering and enforcing the revenue laws.”
What Rowley said
Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley said another problem affecting the country is the issue of revenue collection and to deal with it, a Revenue Authority was being proposed. He added: “There are serious revenue issues in Trinidad and Tobago and in a situation where we have just run five deficit budgets and the prospects of having to run one or two more going ahead, it is very important that the country has the best revenue collection effectiveness.
“And, therefore, early in the life of the new government revenue collection and its effectiveness will attract the attention of the Cabinet. “Half the studies have shown that the best way of improving our revenue collection across the board, across all areas of collection, is to have an effective Revenue Authority and we are committed to that.”