Bill 17 of 2019: A Dubious Piece of Legislation

On Friday, 7 June, Government introduced another Miscellaneous Provisions Bill in the House for debate on Monday 10.
This Bill seeks to amend 8 different pieces of legislation, half of which concern the Pensions of officeholders of the State apparatus, MPs, the PM, President and Judges. Three other Acts to be amended to increase the authorities of Ministers in relation to the NIB, Central Bank and Non-Profit Organisations.
The first amendment is to facilitate the latest tax amnesty proposed for the next quarter beginning the 15th of this month. The aim of the amnesty is to bolster tax collections beyond September.
This last aspect is placed first in the Bill affecting 7 pieces of Revenue laws. It gives the appearance that this Bill is something simple and beneficial. However, a more careful examination of the contents of this Bill reveal a number of features that are dubious indeed.
Tax Ammesty
In the mid-year Budget Review, the Finance Minister announced $370M increase in Expenditure and also in an attempt to improve tax collection to bolster Government Revenue, he also announced a 3-month tax amnesty.
This is the latest in a series of tax amnesties under recent administrations all aimed at increasing tax collections in the short and medium terms and in anticipation of introducing a Revenue Authority “with a clean slate” to replace the BIR.
“Tax­pay­ers are urged to take ad­van­tage of this amnesty, file their out­stand­ing re­turns and pay their back tax­es, be­cause once the new Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty comes on stream, fu­ture amnesties are un­like­ly.”, Minister warned.
Clause 2 of the Bill is to facilitate this amnesty from penalties for late payment taxes and filing Tax Returns and other documents by September 15.
Officeholders’ Pensions
Three clauses of the Bill are to “streamline” the basis of pensions of the President, PM, Parliamentarians, Ministers and Judges.
What ‘streamlining’ means is increasing pensions under relevant laws by adding personal and housing allowances as part of ‘basic salary’ so that the salaries used to calculate pensions and resulting pensions are increased.
Secondly, the Bill also introduces automatic increases in pensions for these officeholders every 5 years after retirement based on revised salaries payable to those still in office. This is in effect an automatic rolling increase in pensions. This is a form of ‘indexation’ – pension increases that do not have to be approved by the Salaries Review Commission or any other negotiated or legislated mechanism.
What is ironic is that every Government since the 1980’s have refused to implement indexation of Public Service Officers’ pensions using increases in the Cost of Living Index the basis of automatic pension increases.
Freedom of Information Restriction
Clause 7 of the Bill amends the Freedom of Information Act by introducing further stumbling blocks for citizens seeking to exercise their Right to access official documents of Public Authorities.
The amendment seeks to do two things;

1. By increasing the period for a public authority to decide on any FOI request from 30 days (1 month) to 90 days (3 months) or a maximum of 180 days or 6 months.
2. All Public Authorities must have the approval of the Attorney General and the AG’s approval can take up to 90 days (3 months) extending the response time to applications for up to 180 days.

These changes will both have the effect of delaying provision of public documents to citizens by a minimum of and additional 60 days or 2 months where the request is approved by the Authority or up to an additional 150 days or 5 months where the AG directs the Authority to provide the document requested.
This further restriction on the Right of Citizens to public information arose out of the recent decision of the Privy Council to overrule the local Courts refusal of leave to apply for Judicial Review of a decision by Petrotrin to refuse a request for documents related to the Malcolm Jones case.
The Attorney General is now being given additional power to direct Ministries, State Agencies and State-owned Corporations on responding to FOI requests from the public.  
National Insurance Exemption
While s. 29 of the National Insurance Act, requires every employed person or unpaid apprentice is required to register for NIS purposes, Clause 8  of the Bill seeks expand the categories of persons in ‘uninsurable employment’, the NIS-exempted employees.
The power to specify additional categories of persons is to be given to the President by Order.
What must be understood is that this really means expanding the powers of the Cabinet as President in Law means the Cabinet in this case since the President will not be acting in his/her own deliberate decision.
This opens a further opportunity for the political electorate to manipulate the NIS system on arbitrary basis.
Increasing the Powers of the Finance Minister
Central Bank HR Information
Clause 7 of the Bill is aimed at increasing the powers of the Finance Minister to demand Human Resource information from the Central Bank concerning organisation and employment matters of the Bank’s staff.
This information will be required to supply such information even based on retroactive requests of the Minister.
While this information, on the face of it, may appear reasonable as the Finance Minister can say that he needs to know the cost of running the Central Bank, though it is an independent institution.
The irony is that Central Bank employees are deprived of the Right to union organisation and representation and the same HR information will remain secret from any representative seeking the interests of the workers.
Non-Profit Organisations
Only a little over a month ago, the Parliament passed the Non-Profit Organisations Act which requires the registration of every single non-profit organisation in the country to be registered and regulated to varying degrees.
The Parliament limited to a maximum of 12 months the Minister’s authority to extend the time for already-existing organisations, other than non-profit companies, could operate prior to registration.
Clause 10 of the Bill seeks to expand the powers of the Minister to grant such extensions without limit.
Essence of Bill 17
This piece of legislation in its content represents directions that are being imposed on our governance generally and are part of the overall anti-social offensive that is being pursued by the ruling elements in our society.
The expansion of privilege, whether in the form of financial rewards or benefits or of further power and authority as well as concentration of power in the centralised Cabinet and its Ministers is one aspect.
The whittling away of the rights of the people by various restrictions or consolidation of deprivation and keeping people disempowered in relation to the public authorities.
The façade of benefit in legislation serving the aims of the state and ruling financial oligarchy as exemplified by the carrot of the amnesty to achieve more taxation in the future.
All of this points to the nature of the governance system which is built on a power to deprive the majority of rights and decision-making power which entrenching the power and privilege of the minority and those who safeguard the status quo.
This Bill, though not to the same degree, is reminiscent of the Public Order Bill which itself was a response to developments in the society but in a direction of curtailing Rights and facilitating the continued enrichment of the privileged.
The rush to debate this Bill also conjures up memories of the ISA which was passed and proclaimed within 2 days.
The expansion of Ministerial authority and Cabinet power as well as the curtailment of public right to public information all resemble the essential nature of both those pieces of legislation, all coincidentally piloted by the PNM.
This Bill, its anti-democratic and anti-people essence must be rejected.
It constitutes another advance of an agenda which seeks to impose a “solution” to the chronic crisis of our society with its deep challenges in the spheres of social, political and economic moribund dysfunction.
To the curtailment of our Right to Public Information – Just Say NO!
To the imposition of the power of the AG on Public Authorities – Just Say NO!
To the expansion of the Authority of the Minister of Finance – Just Say NO!
To the expansion of Cabinet Authority in NIS – Just Say NO!
To the further Expansion of the Privileges of Officeholders – Just Say NO!
To the Expanding Power to Deprive Our Rights – Just Say NO!
To Bill 17 of 2019 – Just Say NO!
 
Clyde Weathehead
A Citizen Fighting for
Democratic Renewal and the
Rights of Citizens Against
Power and Privilege
9 June 2019

READ THE BILL - http://www.ttparliament.org/legislations/b2019h17.pdf

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