Would it be prudent for Governor to sign new customs & duties bill?
Douglas Wheatley, speaking on the radio programme ‘Speak Out BVI’ on February 21, 2012 said concerns are still rife as to whether savings will be passed on to the consumers because the legislation itself did not make an enforcement provision to ensure that the savings were passed on by the merchants and this change does not seem to be for the direct benefit for the consumers.
He also said speculations are common on the bill because persons were not privy to it before it was passed.
“The difficulty there is that when a bill comes to the House it has its first reading and nothing else happens after the first reading but then it is gazetted and it becomes a public document and every Tom, Dick and Harry can have access to it, read it and then make your comments as you see fit to your representatives but this wasn’t done so some of us have not seen this bill yet...”
Second District representative Hon. Alvin Christopher had in fact expressed this concern in the House and even objected to a second reading.
But according to Wheatley, Minister Ronnie Skelton had mentioned that there would be a team or persons coming out from the United Kingdom to look into the budget and although he did not elaborate on it in the House, the general concern among persons he has had discussions with is whether the Governor should sign the bill or wait until the UK delegation gets here.
“So what persons are saying is that if in fact persons from the UK are coming from London to look at our budget and if as we know the budget is still in the Standing Finance Committee where they are looking at it item by item, clause by clause, how would it work that they are in the process of doing this and yet a bill is being taken to the House to reduce the revenue? They found that a little confusing and they posed a question in light of these persons coming from the UK and we don’t know what their remit is apart from what Minister Skelton said but we have not seen a press release or anything about what their remit would be.”
Wheatley said in their view it would not be prudent for the Governor, if he has not already assented to the bill which when approved by the House of Assembly is then sent to him for his signature, to sign off on that bill prior to the visit of the UK Delegation and their discussion with the Minister of Finance and other persons involved.
“They (UK delegation) might be concerned that on the one hand revenue is being reduced by some 3.7 million and they may say well if you are taking that away from customs is there another way of making up that 3.7 million because you want to maintain the strength of your revenue while of course reducing your expenditure and the move that is involved in this reduction is not affecting the expenditure side of the budget but rather the revenue side.”
The talk show host said persons have asked him for an answer but, while he could not, opined that if he was the Governor he would not have signed off to the bill until the visiting finance personnel from the United Kingdom would have arrived and conduct their discussions.
10 Responses to “Would it be prudent for Governor to sign new customs & duties bill?”