A Temporary Land Tax?

A Temporary Land Tax?

-         Tax at All Costs

A recent newspaper report drew attention to a Cabinet Note, dated September 7, 2017 proposing a new Temporary Land Tax to be imposed during October 2017 – September 2019.

WHY THIS LAND TAX?

So, Government is creating this NEW Land Tax:

A.    To temporarily fill a hole in the Government’s Revenue-Expenditure account.

B.     To fill the gap existing because the Property Tax created in 2009 cannot be implemented until 2020. The valuation of properties for which a May deadline was given, “is expected to last beyond 2018”.

This new flat rate tax is not connected to Rental or Capital Value.

It is nothing more than a desperate measure to increase revenues at the expense of all land owners.

It is a plaster on the sore of the crisis gripping the economy and Government’s disastrous financial position.

FROM LAND & BUILDING TAX TO LAND TAX

Land & Building Tax was 2 taxes in one – Land Tax and Building Tax.

In 2009, the PNM Manning administration repealed and replaced the Land & Building Taxes with the Property Tax.

In 2017, the PNM Rowley administration, unable to implement the Property Tax, is dragging the country back to a Land Tax but with a twist.

To see the effect of this new punitive Land Tax, it is useful to compare the Land Tax that was last paid on land, under Land & Building Taxes in 2009 with the Land Tax to be paid in 2018 and 2019.

The first table shows the rates of Land Tax payable under the Land & Building Tax which is the last tax on property we paid in 2009.

L&B Land Tax Rates

On lands 10 acres or less	$10.00 per acre or part thereof
On lands over 10 acres – 100 acres	$10.00/acre on the first 10 acres $15.00/acre on each acre up to 100 acres $20.00/acre on each additional acre or part thereof

NEW Land Tax Rates

residential land:

Size of Land	2009 Land Tax	2018-19 Land Tax
1 lot – 5,000 sq ft or less	$10	$350
5001-10,000 sq ft	$10	$750
10,001 – 43,560 sq ft	$10	$1,500
1 acre	$10	$2,000
3 acres	$30	$3,000
5 acres	$50	$4,000

agricultural land:

Size of Land	2009 Land Tax	2018-19 Land Tax
1 lot – 5,000 sq ft or less	$10	$300
1 acre	$10	$500
3 acres	$30	$750
5 acres	$50	$1,000
10 acres	$100	$1,500

commercial land:

Size of Land	2009 Land Tax	2018-19 Land Tax
1 lot – 5,000 sq ft or less	$10	$4500
1 acre	$10	$15,000
3 acres	$30	$20,000
5 acres	$50	$30,000
10 acres	$100	$40,000

Taking the example of a single lot of land (5,000 sq. ft), for residential land the increase is $340 or 3400% and for commercial land the increase is $4490 or 44,900%.

Looking at agricultural land, for 1 acre of land, t increase is $290 or 2900% and for 10 acres, the increase is $1,400 or 1,400%.

With the current economic conditions, these increased taxes on land will be sold by Government as being “not burdensome”, “reasonable”, etc.

What has to be kept in mind is that this Tax does not include the value of either the land or houses or other buildings that may be on the land which will be used to set the tax when the Property Tax is imposed in 2020.

This temporary Land Tax is being imposed because the illegal Property Tax cannot immediately and amendments to the Property Tax Act 2009 and the already amended Valuation of Land Act will have to be passed.

While Government will waive the Property Tax for 2 years, their waiver is another fake as they will impose the Temporary Land Tax anyway.

The Property Tax, which they have been trying to implement since 2015, and which they could not, will be imposed with its full weight as an unreasonable and unfair tax on all properties in 2020.

55 Years Are Gone – How Yuh Feel?

55 Years Are Gone – How Yuh Feel?

It is hard to believe that 30 years have flown by since Lord Funny asked searching questions in his 25^th Independence anniversary calypso. This August 31, in assessing the state of our nation-building project, we must update Funny and ask every citizen – 55 years are gone – How yuh feel?

How have we fared along this road having formally taken charge of our destiny; having taken the reigns and assumed responsibility for our nation and our future, with no colonial master exercising power in our land?

This is the important critical assessment we must make after 55 years of having an anthem, flag, coat of arms and other trappings of sovereign control.

SAFEGUARD OUR UNITY

When we celebrated the golden anniversary, a cultural activist and historian suggested that our Calypsonians have chronicled our journey with what he described as patriotic songs. Tracing from Lord Brynner’s Trinidad and Tobago Independence to Benjai’s Trini, he produced a ‘Top 25 Patriotic Calypso Chart’ (see chart).

A central theme of most of these songs is UNITY; the kind of unity within our ethnic diversity and that is probably why they are also frequently referred to as ‘nation-building’ songs.

Brynner’s 1962 chorus was a plea to ‘live like one happy family’, a theme revisited in Sparrow’s Model Nation, Sniper’s Portrait of Trinidad, Rudder’s Ganges & The Nile, Merchant’s Let Us Build A Nation Together, Brother Marvin’s Jahaji Bhai and so many more.

Increasingly, our celebrated ‘rainbow nation’ is under serious strain as various barbs of chauvinistic expression rear their ugly heads threatening to drive us down the path of suicidal division. The same is happening in elsewhere creating murderous theatres of catastrophic war and human destruction.

Whether the label is ‘ethnic cleansing’ or ‘protecting our culture’, ‘history’ or ‘civilisation’, racism and racial and ethnic superiority pose dangers no less than when practiced by Hitler’s Nazi hordes or the Boers in Apartheid South Africa or during the genocidal chattel slave trade.

This is a serious threat to the very future of our nation, more dangerous than any economic recession or the deepening decay of our social fabric.

SIMMERING DISCONTENT

Eight years after Independence, our youth rose in popular upheaval to vent the frustrations of their disappointment at the promises of “Massa Day Done” not being manifested as quickly or visibly as they were made to expect.

Three years after Funny posed his 25^th anniversary question, thousands of disappointed and distraught workers and vulnerable citizens were again on the streets demonstrating ‘how they felt’ reeling under the crushing burden of adjustment in the face of an unsustainable economy.

On the 50 Anniversary, the simmering discontent with our nation-building project, found expression, not in mass action, but in the protestation of the Head of State when he voiced his disappointment at the failure to solve the fundamental Constitutional issue of the relationship between Tobago and Trinidad.

In 2017, the failure to resolve this critical relationship as a free and equal union between our nations previously brought together by colonial power, is again reflected in the persistent issues surrounding the collapse of the air and sea bridges between the islands.

After 55 years, discontent with the state of our independence progress persists, as our economy continues to be vulnerable to the global pressures on a single commodity-dominated structure, very much like the pre-independence sugar economy.

PRESSURES ON OUR NATION

Our governance structures remain cast in the mould of maximum Governorship with little by way of a more participatory system in which the majority of the body politic plays a meaningful role in the process of decision-making.

Our social structure is being torn asunder as the measures taken in response to popular discontent in 1970 and later aimed at stamping out the spirit of rebellion among our youth, continue to spawn organised criminal enterprise on the foundation of the illicit drug economy and murderous criminality.

Close to 500 people are the victims of murderous crime every year in a country that is not at war. Our women, children, elderly - no one is safe from the wanton criminality and failure of the state to guarantee the right of all citizens to safety and security.

The failure to focus our nation-building on human development to make our society fit for human beings in the 21^st century is now threatening the very UNITY of our nation to which Lord Brynner drew attention in 1962.

CRITICAL TASKS FOR NATION BUILDING

The necessity to build an economy which is sustainable and capable of meeting the constantly growing needs of our citizens for basic amenities and other needs is critical.

The necessity to renew our political and electoral processes to put power in the hands of the majority and ensure a meaningful role for the citizens in decision-making so that their interests are central to all that society does is critical.

The resolution of the Tobago-Trinidad relationship based on mutual respect and recognising the rights of the 2 nations that make up our country is critical.

The creation of a state of security and safety by ensuring that the rights of all citizens are guaranteed and that criminality is suppressed is critical.

Patriotism in this state of disappointment with the failure to deliver on the promise of Independence requires not talk, not rhetoric but concrete action to solve the fundamental problems still unresolved 55 years after the lowering of the Union Jack and hoisting the Red White and Black.

The nation-building songs have unwittingly chronicled our ongoing failure to resolve critical issues.

What we need is not more appeals to an abstract patriotism. Our citizens need to organise themselves in concrete actions to make real measured advances starting now and further successes recorded by the 56^th anniversary and beyond.

Then, we shall say Happy Independence in a meaningful way. Then, we will feel proud of what we have achieved as a nation.

                                               25 Top patriotic calypsoes – 1962-2012

By Peter Ray Blood

 Trini – Benjai

Nah Leavin’ – Denyse Plummer

Trinidad – Naya George

Trinidad and Tobago – Lord Brynner

We Can Make It – Black Stalin

I Thank Thee – Calypso Rose

Still de Best – Cro Cro

Rhythm of a People – Gypsy

Sweet T&T – Natasha Wilson

I Love My Country – Machel Montano

God Bless Our Nation – Lord Baker

Portrait of Trinidad – Mighty Sniper

Model Nation – Mighty Sparrow Sailing – De Mighty Trini Ten Thousand Flowers Bloom – David Rudder Ganges & The Nile – David Rudder Back to My Island – David Rudder Trini to the Bone – David Rudder, feat Carl Jacob Sugar Island – Carl Jacob, feat David Rudder Sweet Sweet Trinidad – Lord Funny Let Us Build a Nation Together – Merchant Jahaji Bhai – Brother Marvin Bear with me – Chucky Our National Watchword – Michelle Henry Give. I Will Reciprocate – Karen Eccles

IMPLEMENT PROCUREMENT LAW NOW!!

BIG CONTRACTS BEING DOLED OUT!

MILLIONS IN TAXPAYERS' MONEY HANDED OUT IN QUESTIONABLE CONTRACTS!

PROCUREMENT LEGISLATION REMAINS ON PAPER.

IMPLEMENT PROCUREMENT LAW NOW!!

‘Pontius Pilate’ and the Bridgemans Deals

‘Pontius Pilate’ and the Bridgemans Deals

Reporter - “Dr. Rowley, as head of the Cabinet and Government, are you convinced that something has drastically gone wrong and is crooked in this transaction?”

PM Rowley – “Yes”. “…. I said yes, my yes means a lot to me.”

The above interactions were part of a Government media conference in Tobago yesterday.

The Head of the Cabinet says there was something ‘crooked’ in the Bridgeman Cabo Star-Ocean Flower II or 2 procurement.

He went further to say, “Having committed ourselves to the Cabo Star and having committed to the Ocean Flower to solve these two ferry requirements, it had been coming to the Government’s attention, initially and largely from the media.”.

What was the Head of the Cabinet really saying about the procurement which was, in the final analysis, approved by the Cabinet on the recommendation of the line Minister – the Works and Transport Minister?

If he listened to himself, he would understand what he said was while this procurement was going on from the Board of the PATT (an agency of the Ministry appointed by the Cabinet) then to the Minister and then the Cabinet, the Government ONLY BECAME CONCERNED AFTER APPROVING THE DEAL BECAUSE OF MEDIA REPORTS!!

So, all along the way, NO ONE, the Board, the Minister or Cabinet had ANY CONCERN?! NO ONE ASKED A QUESTION?! THEY ALL BECAME CONCERNED AFTER THE FACT! Is this how procurement works??

A week ago, in an online post, I raised the question - “Why is the PROCUREMENT LEGISLATION REMAINING JUST PAPER while BIG CONTRACTS continue to be given out by this Government for infrastructure, boat and other service supply using flawed and non-transparent processes that are contrary to the LAW - the Procurement Legislation?” 

Instead of accounting to the people of this nation for the failure of the Board of PATT, the Minister and the Cabinet to ask questions and get full information BEFORE APPROVING THE DEAL, the PM went on to say – “…while the Cabinet approved the charter agreements of both vessels, he did not know who conducted the negotiations with Bridgemans Services Group”.

Was who conducted negotiations more important to the PM than knowing who Bridgemans Services Group was before approving the expenditure of millions of taxpayers’ dollars in a deal with a company the Minister told us he assumed was registered in this country because ‘it has Trinidad in its name”?

Like Pontius Pilate, the PM kicks the buck downstairs and is searching for “who conducted the negotiations”.

All the concepts of our inherited Westminster governance of Ministerial Responsibility, individually as Minister or collectively as Cabinet, are dumped and lowly functionaries at the Port Authority remain on suspension and the targets of investigations.

Once again Constitutional conventions are treated as irrelevant. Remember, rivers into streams etc.

I repeat the last statement of my post last week - What is also disingenuous is how a former CIVIL SERVANT was set up as Chairman of the PATT and functionaries are now being used as fall guys for PNM corruption.

It is a pity that rather than ACCOUNTABILITY BY MINISTER AND CABINET, we are getting the most unkindest cut of all being directed to lowly public employees.

Clyde Weatherhead

Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Blow ’Way: The Legacy of Lancelot Layne – An Experience

Blow Way: The Legacy of Lancelot Layne - An Experience

Blow ’Way: The Legacy of Lancelot Layne – An Experience

As I headed to Port of Spain in the afternoon sun, more than the usual Sunday traffic jam surrounded my vehicle. The rain which began as we left Trincity disappeared on entering the Beetham giving way to a brilliant late afternoon sun.

It was as if the elements were clearing the way for the event we were about to participate in.

I had read the articles in the newspapers heralding Blow ’Way: The Legacy of Lancelot Layne as a celebration of Lance’s life and work as a ‘part’ of this year’s Emancipation celebrations.

The irony I have felt at the disassociation of Lance’s name from the Emancipation Day celebrations over the years threatened to once again cloud my emotions. For years, except for Brother Resistance’s insistence on invoking in his own performances, the name of this man who almost singlehandedly waged the sacrificial struggle for the recognition of Emancipation Day in the 1980’s Lance’s name had been obliterated.

Emancipation Day is a major element of the legacy of Lancelot Layne.

I had to be there. I had to pay tribute to the man with whom I had walked the streets of Port of Spain and Tunapuna and with flambeau aloft stood in vigil on the ancestral slave lands at Lopinot in those years before the proclamation of Emancipation Day as a national holiday in 1985.

I had to be there to once again pay tribute to Lancelot Layne Kebu as I have on Emancipation Day carrying his image to the morning procession as a trade union president and every year since by playing Kamboulay, Celebration and Dance Jambalassie Dance among so many of his relevant musical contributions at home and in my car.

I had to be there because on Saturday afternoon, hearing good afternoon at my gate, I looked out to see Anuska, Niasha and Janice Layne who had taken the trouble to deliver an invitation personally to the celebration. I could not but accept such invitation from Lance’s wife and daughters.

As I parked at Adam Smith square and walked up to the Black Box venue, I didn’t know exactly what to expect.

On entering, the Orisha welcoming ceremony was proceeding and there were Anuska and Niasha with aunty Ella (Andall) participating. Janice, not loving the spotlight was sitting with the children of the family. 

This was followed by dedicated poetry by sister Eintou Springer.

The session, that I title Reminiscences, was an emotional recall of Lance’s life, work and adventures narrated by his daughters, Aunty Ella, Christopher Laird, Resistance, Wendell Manwarren and Merten Kaatz (the producer of the Blow Way double CD launched as part of the event) followed.

The Reminiscences Session

I sat anxiously hoping there would be an ‘open mic’ session so I could add my two cents about my encounters with Lance from the 70’s and 80’s with my dear brother Brian Honore’, the flambeau processions, the days of anti-Apartheid protest outside the Oval, meeting his 3 ladies (Janice and the twins) when I took up managing Voices steelband in Maracas-St. Joseph, assisting in the girls’ weddings and attending an Emancipation celebration in La Brea at which a dance troupe of children danced and sang snippets of Lance’s songs and taking a CD of Kamboulay and Celebration for their choreographer at Coffee Village some weeks later.

Then came the award-winning Banyan Documentary Crossing Over in which the last scene was of Lance and Koo Nimo liming with the Voices pan players after our practice session that night.

To this point, there was so much to recall about Lance - the man and Lance - the cultural pioneer and in the best connotations of these words – father, family man, patriot, warrior, Caribbean man, proud African, true Trinbagonian, defender of the culture of the people, the initiator of Emancipation Day and creator of Rapso.

I have long held that Lancelot Layne, Andre Tanker, Ella Andall, Sundar Popo and Mungal Patesar headed a powerful cast of musical ground breakers leading the renaissance of the Trinbagonian music in 1970 and the years that followed.

Lance, Andre and Ella worked directly together.

There were others who contributed in various ways, Valentino, Stalin and a host of calypsonians, Clive Zanda, Ja Ja Onilu, Len Boogsie Sharpe, the Mau Mau and Mansa Musa Drummers with whom Lance collaborated on many of his recordings.

Lance did not care if he offended. He offended those he intended to. So, the banning of Get Off The Radio by what has become known as the cultural mafia was no skin off his back.

After all his hard work and effort to rally this nation around the Strike Squad only to be blamed for the disaster of the last game against the USA on the Road to Italy would have phased a weaker man.

But Lance was the quintessential Afrodadian who detested the pretenders who engage in Bringing Off because he Doh Dig No Blues as he soldiered on in the cause of the Celebration of Emancipation and the true significance of the Kamboulay.

I came to know his love song dedicated to his wife through my association with the family. I put it on the playlist for a radio programme I did and while If I Were King was playing the operator asked “Who is that?”. When I told him, he replied - he is not the man who does do them Rapso ting. Well, a prophet is not exalted in his own land, I suppose.

Fittingly, the evening closed with a most dynamic exposition of real Trini instrumental jazz and we ting music by Clive Zanda and his band. When Clive performed a piece in which he recalled was at Lance’s insistence that he venture into the realm of his vocal exploits it was fitting tribute to what Lance did for others in the world of our culture.

Clive Zanda Trio on Stage

While the clouds hid the stars for almost the entire evening, not a drop of rain dared interrupt this wonderful tribute to a real cultural hero of our land – the champion of Emancipation Day and the father of Rapso – Lancelot Kofi Agyeman Layne – a fighter for the protection of his nation.

Clyde Weatherhead

July 31 2017