OPPOSITION ACCUSE GOVERNMENT OF GIVING INSUFFICIENT NOTICE AND TIME FOR VAT HOLIDAY

The Opposition notes that the government has now pushed back the timeframe for the VAT Holiday back to school to August 22 through to September 11th. While the government has provided no explanation, we can only surmise that this is yet another example of poor execution of public policy on the part of the Prime Minister and his Cabinet.

The public is fully aware that the government never committed to doing the VAT Back to School Holiday period during the budget exercise or any point afterward, even after the FNM asked about it.

It is only on the insistence of the FNM that the government was embarrassed into doing the right thing. But true to form, because the Davis administration is chronically late and disorganized, they botched the launch date and did not give merchants sufficient time to adjust their systems.

Now without any apology, they have adjusted the dates, giving parents insufficient notice and time to take advantage of this important initiative for Bahamian parents.

We in the FNM are pleased that the government took our advice and extended the VAT Back to School programme for the third year. We call on them however to get serious about governance and to get themselves organized and focused on delivering help for Bahamians, as opposed to their busy schedule of international travel and posing for public relations photo-ops.

We also call on the Davis administration to embrace our other recommendations to reduce gasoline tax in the near term, and to eliminate the VAT on breadbasket items, medicine and baby supplies. To pay for these tax concessions, we demand that they abandon their illegal removal of tax on yacht