Dear Editor,
The imposition of VAT on private education makes a mockery of any effort to improve, sustain or edify Guyana’s most precious resource ‒ its young people. When 14000 signatures is not enough to convince the coalition government that they are acting contrary to the wishes of the masses and are abusing the goodwill given to them by the electorate in 2015, one wonders about their state of mind.
Historically human civilization made great strides with the improvement in knowledge (education). Any attempt to limit, curtail or impede education by taxing it is a fatal blow to any semblance of the “good life” for the future generation. Considering that the public schools are currently overcrowded and cannot comfortably accommodate all the children who attend private schools it would have been prudent to cut infrastructural spending from somewhere and try to reimburse the parents of these children rather than exacting VAT from them, because they are saving the state from building more schools as well as the expenditure for operating same. Moreover, the private schools serve as a beacon and a source of competition; a challenge for the public school system to improve and produce comparable results.
The argument from those in office is that these parents are rich and can afford to pay VAT. They cannot picture the parents who are struggling to make ends meet, yet in the name of love and sacrifice spend their last dollar on tuition fees because they realize that the single most important thing they can do for their children is to give them a good education.
Had the consumer index been kept on the economists’ so-called basket of goods, it would have been revealed that workers had a significant decline in real wages after the draconian 2017 budget. This would be the case even if VAT on private tuition fees is called off, because many goods and services that were previously VAT free were added to the list. For the coalition to pat itself on the back for reducing VAT by 2% in accordance with its election campaign promise is ludicrous.
The masses have to understand that any party which comes to power under the present constitution will be free to bite the hand that fed them until the constitution is changed to allow the people to elect their MPs on a constituency basis.
Yours faithfully,
Rudolph Singh
