LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION Mia Mottley on Tuesday night called on the Comptroller of Customs and the Commissioner of Inland Revenue to say whether the Cost U Less warehouse store could legitimately import items duty-free into Barbados without an order from Minister of Finance Chris Sinckler.
She said that under Chapter 67 B, Section 3 of the Duties, Taxes And Other Payments Act, such duty-free exemptions and tax waivers enjoyed by the store since 2011 could be legal only if subjected to negative resolution; so that any member of Parliament would be entitled to bring a resolution expressing disagreement.
“These things cannot be legally exempt of import duty, value added tax or any other taxes, whether it is on the construction items, imported food items or personal effects,” she said.
“I therefore want to ask the Comptroller of Customs and the Commissioner of Revenue that, without this order, can Cost U Less be legitimately bringing items duty-free into this country . . . . If the minister can show where the order is, the date, time and placement in this honourable chamber, I will be the first to withdraw this concern. But the Clerk of Parliament, myself and others have searched, and nowhere since the 13th of April 2011 can we find the appropriate order,” she told the House.
However, Minister of Finance Chris Sinckler said, in his wrap-up to the debate on a resolution to approve a guarantee by the Minister of Finance of $5.55 million to be borrowed by Hotel & Resorts Limited from the RBC Royal Bank (Barbados) Limited to facilitate debt repayments, that the Opposition Leader did not understand the section of the law which she had quoted.
He said Chapter 67 B, Section 3 had specifically stated that such an order related to duties, taxes and exemptions was subject to any condition specified in the order, to negative resolution, and may be retrospective to what was specified in the order.
During Sinckler’s wrap-up, Mottley rose ten times on various points of order while insisting that the tax waivers given to the warehouse firm could become effective only if the order was issued by the minister.
She said there was no such order on Parliament’s record in 2011, 2012 or this year. (RJ)
