Category: Legislation

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If the SARA Bill is not radically restructured it will be challenged in the courts

Professor Clive Thomas has a deserved reputation as an outstanding economist, particularly in sugar and monetary economics, a champion for bread and justice, for human rights and for free and fair elections. Perhaps because of this, his professional reputation remained intact despite his role as co-leader of the Working People’s Alliance to which he was elected in 1985, which I believe was the last time the WPA held any internal party elections.

Prof Thomas represents the WPA in the APNU leadership and since May 2015, has held prominent positions as Presidential Adviser on sustainable development, Chairman of GuySuCo and Director of the State Assets Recovery Unit (SARU). While his contribution as an adviser is unclear, his role in sugar and SARU has done little to match his academic reputation.

He was a prominent member of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (CoI) in the sugar industry and the sole author of Volume 2 of the Report ‒ the Financial/Economic Analysis. Yet, not only has he never publicly accepted any responsibility for or association with the Report, but as GuySuCo’s Chairman, he has acted contrary to positions he took as a member of the Commission. On top of that, he appears not to have advanced a single solution to sugar’s problems, leaving it once again to the politicians. Sugar is in the same messy and uncertain state as when he assumed leadership of GuySuCo.

Still, it is Dr Thomas’s role in SARU that causes the greatest concern. Continue reading “If the SARA Bill is not radically restructured it will be challenged in the courts”

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PPP/C’s Income Tax Act amendment is also unconstitutional

The Stabroek News of Friday January 6, 2017, reported that two parliamentary representatives of the PPP/C criticised but abstained from voting on an amendment to the Value-Added Tax giving the Commissioner General the right to prevent persons, through the Chief Immigration Officer, from leaving the country once they owed VAT.

And in the letter columns of the Stabroek News of January 7, former Attorney General, Mr Anil Nandlall returns to the issue with a reasoned argument whether the amendment violates the Constitution and is therefore void (‘Section 45 of the VAT Act is unconstitutional’).

This is interesting because in 1993 then PPP/C Finance Minister, Mr Asgar Ally inserted by way of an amendment to section 71 of the Income Tax Act a new provision that is arguably more dangerous than the APNU+AFC’s amended VAT provision. Taking Mr Nandlall’s argument, it means that the PPP/C’s amendment to the Income Tax Act is, at best, on the same tenuous constitutional ground as the APNU+AFC’s amendment to the VAT legislation.

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Garnishment and Distress Proceedings

Two proposals announced in 2017 Budget Speech – inserting into the Income Tax Act distress proceedings similar to the provision in the Value-Added Tax (VAT) Act, and garnishment of funds in bank accounts for the settlement of tax arrears – have caught the national attention. The discussion has not been helped by the misinformed and misguided statements in the media, even by columnists and persons who have a duty to be better informed.

That failure which is the cause of much of the confusion, misinformation and “noise”, has led to a situation whereby two very different provisions are conflated and wrong premises are used to defend or justify the two proposals. They should be addressed separately. Here is why.

The terms garnishment and distress are of significant legal and constitutional import and depending on circumstances may have different application to action against the person (in personam) and against the thing or property (in rem). As these matters apply to our Constitution they also raise the tension, if not the clash, between, on the one hand, Article 65 which grants to Parliament the power to “make laws for the peace, order and good government” and on the other hand, Article 142 which protects property rights subject to exceptions, as well as Article 8 which makes void any law inconsistent with the Constitution. Continue reading “Garnishment and Distress Proceedings”

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Another GECOM let down

Introduction
Once again, the role of GECOM in the determination and publication of the results of national and regional elections as well as its general functions have been highlighted. GECOM as it exists today is the product of the efforts to address widespread concerns that elections prior to 1992 were not free and fair. A limited reform process resulted in the 1992 elections being conducted under a seven-person Commission made up of three members named by the Government, three by the Opposition, and the Chairman selected by the President from a list of six names submitted by the Leader of the Opposition is often referred to as the [President] Carter formula.

While politically the formula was considered acceptable since both “sides” of the divide felt represented in the process, it was intended to be a temporary arrangement to be reviewed for subsequent elections. Inertia set in and the formula has remained unchanged for all five elections since 1992. It should not continue.
Continue reading “Another GECOM let down”

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Sad state of the judiciary

Introduction
Today I want to turn the spotlight on the country’s judiciary but before I do so I will briefly recap on four exchanges in the newspapers between the Office of the Attorney General and the Ministry of Legal Affairs through its Permanent Secretary, Ms. Indira Anandjit, and me.

In her second letter published on October 10 Ms. Anandjit outdoes her first on October 8 in terms of abuse, distortions and outright untruthful statements. But there was a twist. She resorted to accusing me of chauvinism, claiming, dishonestly, that I “insinuated” that she did not write the first letter of which she is yet to assert ownership. What I said is that “Mr Nandlall would shelter under the coattails of his Permanent Secretary from which to throw pebbles at me.”

Ms. Anandjit’s call for help in the name of chauvinism is equally dishonest. In my letter in the Stabroek News of October 7, critical of Anil Nandlall’s inaction on the Judicial Review Act, I did not mention her name or refer to her even once. Yet, responding in defence of Nandlall, she used the opportunity on October 8 to attack me by name eleven times. In my second letter on October 9, I mentioned her name peripherally two times. In her response on October 10, she continued her personal attack, referring to me by name eight times. Now, nineteen times against two hardly supports any genuine cri de Coeur of misogynistic victimhood.
Continue reading “Sad state of the judiciary”