Dear Editor,
My first time working at an establishment was in July, 2016. That was the first time a TIN became a necessity. I completed the necessary process at the GRA and was given a slip with the TIN and was told by an employee that the machine was not working and that I should call from time to time to know when the TIN certificate was ready.
Editor, I do admit that I was very lazy regarding uplifting the certificate. I kept procrastinating. I only called once but the call went unanswered. Then in June of this year I decided that I would uplift the certificate. The employee was not alarmed that I came almost a year later. She took my ID card and went to a cabinet where she just skimmed through a few files and told me, “We keep those certificates in that cabinet and it’s not there, so you will have to pay $5,000 for a reprint.”
I asked her if she had proof that the certificate was ever printed. She responded in the negative.
Editor, I know I was lazy, but there is no deadline to uplift the certificate that I am aware of. Why should I have to pay for a reprint if I didn’t have an initial print? The fact that the machine was not working at the time does not guarantee that the certificate was ever printed in the first place.
I had even asked the employee to double check, but she did not do so. Is GRA so organised that they will keep the certificates in one cabinet? Is there no chance that it was placed in another cabinet if it was printed in the first place?
Yours faithfully,
(Name and address provided)
