The government’s planned increase in gun licence fees as a revenue earning strategy is “a lazy move,” according to PPP General Secretary Clement Rohee, who yesterday said that this will put a dent in people’s spending power.
“The movement is an exorbitant one and it will put pressure [on people]… when you go to renew your licences now, you have to pay that additional sum of money and this is thousands of dollars. Who don’t need thousands of dollars in their pockets?” he questioned at the party’s weekly press conference.
Finance Minister Winston Jordan, in his 2016 budget presentation last Friday, announced that it is being proposed that the Firearms Act be amended to increase the annual fee for firearm licences. It is being proposed that the current $2,000 shotgun licence fee be increased to $5,000; that the handgun licence fee be increased from $5,000 to $25, 000; that the rifle licence fee be increased from $5,000 to $40,000; and that dealers’ licence fee be raised from $7,500 to $150, 000.
Jordan also said a raft of legislation would be amended to increase the fees paid to obtain various other licences, including regulations under the Auctioneer Act; regulations under the Hucksters Licencing and Control Act; regulations under Miscellaneous Licences Act; regulations made under the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Act; regulations made under the Rice Factories Act; and regulations made under the Tax Act. The increases in fees are all intended to widen government revenue.
Rohee recalled that during his time as a minister in the former PPP/C government, there was “stiff resistance” to increasing revenues by increasing the licence fees in a number of different areas, since it was felt that it was not the best way to go.
Rohee said that a lot of poor and middle income people relied on these “areas quite a lot” and he singled out the increase in gun licence fees. He said that when the PPP came to office, “we established, as a matter of policy… that they will give priority to persons involved in three sectors: farmers, Amerindians and …businessmen.”
He said that farmers are constant victims of larceny and, therefore, for them to protect their stocks from thieves and wildlife, they needed at least a shotgun. He recalled that while he held the office of Minister of Home Affairs, farmers would often come and complain about the destruction that animals were doing on their farms and made requests for at least one firearm to protect their crops.
The Amerindian community, he added, was given consideration because they lived a life that required moving from “bow and arrow to some form of firearm, which was mainly a shotgun, to assist them in protecting their families and villages.” He said that not only was this group given priority when it came to the issuance of licences but in terms of the fees, which were never increased. Additionally, he said businessmen were given special consideration since they were usually targeted by criminal elements.
“The point is well made that increasing or raising revenues as a result of increasing the fees for licences is what I understand the opposition leader described it as, a lazy way to go to raise revenues,” he stressed.
Asked if this increase could lead to an “underground sale” of guns, he said, “the wiser the government the smarter the population…so as the fees go up I am sure the bribes will increase as well.”
‘Extra penny’
Rohee told reporters that the increase in gun licences will be “an extra penny out of your pocket.” He said that anyone who wishes to have an extra penny in their pockets ought to be given some sort of “saving grace.”
“So whether it has to do with inflation or otherwise, to me that is not the question, the question is that we are taking money out of people’s pockets to raise revenues and like I said it is a lazy way of going about raising revenues. Find creative ways of going about doing it, rather than taxing people,” he said.
Asked if the party is using its appeal for people to have more money in their pockets as a political strategy, Rohee responded, “I wouldn’t want to say we using it as a political football… by suggesting that that is the way we want to go but the fact of the matter is because there are hard times in Guyana every penny counts, every dollar counts.”
Asked if what he is saying is not a contradiction of the then PPP/C government’s refusal to lower the 16% VAT and the Berbice River Bridge tolls, Rohee did not offer a clear response.
“Each government formulates policies as it sees best in the total overview of the economy. The APNU+AFC came into office on a campaign slogan that they will reduce the toll of the Berbice Bridge. They themselves have to pay the substitute…so it is an additional burden on taxpayers,” he stressed, while adding that the bridge reduction is not coming free of cost.
“There is no free ride here,” he emphasised.
He told reporters that the PPP had a policy where it felt that VAT was the best way of earning revenues. “And that is why it never really moved in that direction. It was rather complicated,” he said, while noting that former president Donald Ramotar had setup a committee to look at VAT reduction after taking office. “That committee never really came up with any solution,” he said, while explaining that because it became a complicated issue there was no movement on it.
