Government Failing to Act

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Economy

Tuesday, 08 June 2010 06:00

By Andy Liburd

While the government may be listening to employers, it appears to be failing to act on what it is hearing. That is the view of President of the Employers' Federation Acres Stowe, who shared his association’s thoughts on a number of matters affecting the economy today.

“I think the government needs to listen and act as if they have listened,” he said. He told Caribarena.com that the Employers Federation had maintained its stance that there should be no new taxes, but it doesn’t seem this advice is being heeded.

“That’s a situation (the taxes) that we continue to speak about as a federation, that there should be no new taxes, no increases in taxes, and there should be sensible tax policies pursued,” Stowe said. “I am not sure if this is happening, because we have witnessed the reduction in the list of items from the ABST and the revenue recovery tax and all those sort of things."

He said the government is in an awkward position, as it continuously fails to address the overburdened public sector, which becomes the beneficiary of its revenue earning measures.

A good portion of the revenue earned from taxpayers and the business sector goes to meet salary and wages obligations for government offices.

“I will be frank. I am not sure that the government can make those changes right now, because they are really caught between a rock and a hard place. The timing? I think they have allowed it to slip by, so right now it's unfortunate that the changes they would have liked to make, they cannot really make for obvious reasons,” the president said.

He added that the government might just have to wade it out, and devise some creative solutions to deal with the present circumstances. But he stressed that the overburden public sector is a matter that needs to be addressed "relatively quickly".

He pointed this out after noting his observations that the Antigua & Barbuda economy continues a downward slide.

“The economy continues to decline very rapidly and it would appear that there is very little the powers that be can do to stop the gushing,” Stowe said. “The fact remains, from a governmental standpoint, we have been waiting for the impetus from various funding agencies such as the IMF and the World Bank and the CDB, but it is not yet forthcoming, so from a federation, what we have been seeking to do is to rally the troops, and we have always sought to do that even when the economy is fairly decent."

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