Attorney Subhas Panday is calling on Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley not to allow ministers to use state vehicles as their personal vehicles, estimating it will save government $29 million annually.
He says by cutting out corrupt practices the Government can save money instead of implementing property taxes that are expected to bring in $55 million a year.
Speaking during a press conference at his office on Gordon Street, titled “Corruption, the budget and property taxes”, Panday said the former administration gave its ministers complete control of state vehicles.
“In 2011, the then attorney general, Anand Ramlogan, gave the last administration the following legal advice which was accepted and implemented by it: They said despite the above allowances, ministers could use state vehicles and treat it as if it were their own.
“They could drive it, use it for their personal business, keep it at their homes, keep it as their private property and you know what happened, the state bore the full cost of the maintenance, including fuel for these vehicles,” said Panday.
But now, Panday said, he was calling on Rowley to ensure his ministers did not fall into that pit.
He added: “We are calling now on the Prime Minister to rescind immediately that decision. Don’t allow his ministers to fall in this pit and this complaint is not to cast any aspersions on anyone.
“However this is the kind of unnecessary spending the Prime Minister spoke about that must be stopped because this is too great a burden on taxpayers.”
Panday is proposing that the money that would have been spent on those vehicles can be used to prevent the introduction of property taxes.
He explained: “We are saying that savings from these and other kinds of activities where they doing what they have to do along the wide spectrum of government, state enterprises and all that, can lead to huge savings which might be enough to stave off the dreaded property tax on poor people.
“Because if you are saying you have to introduce property tax because there are no resources in the Treasury, we are saying there are ways to deal with graft and corruption.
“You’ll get so much money back that you don’t have to put the burden of property tax on the poor people and that is the reason we are calling on the Government to take decisive action as a matter of urgency.”
Asked why he had not spoken out about this alleged misuse of state vehicles while the last administration was in power, Panday said:
“Rowley spoke about it and they did nothing about it. Now that Rowley is Prime Minister and can do something about it, I am reminding him that he spoke about it. I remember him speaking about it in 2011.”