Social Protection Ministry must share blame for impasse at BCGI over refund of overtime taxes – Lewis

GB&GWU Branch Executive at BCGI: left to right…Leslie Junor (Branch Secretary), Garfield Brutus (Vice President) and Ephraim Velloza, President.

Fresh obstacles that threaten to block an official decision that taxes deducted from payments made to Bauxite Company of Guyana Inc. (BCGI) workers since October 2016 should be restored to them are being blamed by Guyana Trades Union Congress General Secretary, Lincoln Lewis, “in large measure” on the “inclination of the present political administration to allow the Russians to get away with murder in the same way that the previous administration did. I think that we have reached a point where as far as what happens at BCGI is concerned we redirect much of the blame on the Government of Guyana rather than on the Russians,” Lewis told Stabroek Business during a meeting earlier this week.

Late last month it was announced that BCGI had signed on to an agreement allowing for the non- payment of taxes on overtime, a decision that triggered the necessity for a refund to the workers of taxes that were being deducted since October last year. Lewis was at pains to point out that the company’s Russian management’s signing on to the tax free overtime agreement had come only after it had earlier refused to sign the same agreement.

While, under a measure of pressure from the Ministry of Social Protection, the agreement was eventually signed, Stabroek Business has seen a document issued by the BCGI management which is likely to significantly delay full payment of the tax refund. Lewis, who is also General Secretary of the Guyana Bauxite and General Workers’ Union   (GB&GWU) which secured a 90% support in a recent worker representation poll at the BCGI worksite said that he now fears that the company may be seeking to deny workers the refund by delaying it for as long as possible. “In the event that time passes and workers leave the job …they will probably never get their money,” Lewis told this newspaper.