September 16, 2019 ~ dennisedemming ~ Leave a comment

Election Goody No.1; amnesty extension!

Hurray … election goodies have begun. The income tax amnesty has been extended to September 30th. But like an ungrateful voter, my response is a big steups. Unless the extension of time is accompanied by the release of refund cheques, we are all in the same place.

The tax amnesty was conceptualized to provide an opportunity for big businesses to regularize their outstanding taxes before the Tax Authority begins to focus on recovery. For the amnesty to be effective, the timely release of refunds is critical.

There is hesitancy to take advantage of the amnesty because business and people simply do not have the money to pay their taxes. If businesses did not have the funds in time for Monday 16, it is unlikely that they can raise those funds for 30 September for this amnesty to make sense.

The amnesty should be extended to October 31^st in keeping with the statutory deadline established by the Registrar of Companies. This would give the government the opportunity to pay all refunds, which some businesses are waiting for in order to pay the same government.

Daily businesses face impatient bankers as they negotiate overdrafts. They burn through cash reserves to pay those overdraft costs, which are incurred from not getting timely refunds. They live in hope that their creditor’s list will be reduced by one—the GOTT.

If a business cannot attach a cheque to the tax submission, then they are at the same place as prior to the extension of the amnesty. A little common sense will tell you that if you pay me and I pay you back and do some other things with the money you refunded me, the multiplier effect will kick in and make a difference.

There was a time when holding a government contract could back your overdraft, but not anymore. There is now a polite question: “Do you have any other contracts?” If the answer is no, then you’re sure to be sent in another direction to find some other promising projects.

The business model of relying on government contracts is unsustainable. We have learned that no matter who is in power if you or your business is not supportive of the government, you will be victimized and receive the polite regret letter indicating that your submission or proposal was not successful.

The last six years in this country has seen no wiggle room to run any business. The banks and financial institutions are ‘wetting’ us with interest and service charges. Those businesses with interlocking directorships are taken care of with preferential treatment, but the ‘Ramlal Public’ enterprises are doing financial somersaults to honour their obligations.

The minister of finance must understand that for a number of businesses in the present economic climate, the timely release of the refunds is critical to them staying afloat. If the minister really understood the hardship businesses are experiencing, he would release the funds to pay outstanding refunds. The immediate impact would be an injection of funds into the spending stream. The second benefit would be that the government’s coffers would be immediately increased because the funds would be available to pay outstanding taxes and benefit from the amnesty.

Only an uninformed person would ignore this amnesty and allow their interest rates to increase. This amnesty is a gift horse but there are constraints, which in some instances can only be relieved by the government doing the responsible thing and paying our tax refunds, including VAT.

This two-week extension is another example of fiddling and fishing for election likes.

Imbert … neither the love nor the likes!

October 9, 2017October 9, 2017 ~ dennisedemming ~ Leave a comment

Jamaican reggie artist Chronixx does it for the “love, not the likes”. That is the line that dominated my mind in the recent hurricane of lashes that the Minister of Finance received from his post budget discussion.

I am convinced that Minister Imbert does it neither for the love nor the likes. He has been returned to office by his constituents for the past 25 years and this reassures him (the way a battered woman reassures her abuser) that the population will always love him. But politics and spousal abuse are not the same and it is only a matter of time before his constituents say, “enough is enough.” While I recognize that the vote is for the brand (ie. the party), the representative will either add value or diminish the brand by his actions and words, and at the moment the brand seems to be going in the wrong direction.

Minister Imbert, like the leadership of the current Cabinet represents a cohort which refuses to believe that our future politics will be determined on social media. He is stuck in a paradigm which died at the turn of the last century. Public figures and indeed politicians whose salaries WE PAY, MUST engage us respectfully. Communicating in an age of social media means that your every communication must be based on a well–thought through strategy that considers (a) your target audience and (b) the outcomes you wish. Once your strategy is agreed, and the target audience identified, then you shape the message and decide on the messenger.

Communicating in a digital age means that audiences want quick, easily digestible messages. They will not engage with the 3-hour budget presentation or the full clip of the exchange at the post-budget discussion. They will receive whatever is trending and unfortunately in this instance, what was consumed was an articulate black women taking on a sullen faced white politician. No legal threat or manoeuvre could erase that impact.

The current government has been weak at traditional Communications and they are even weaker at communicating in a digital age. What is needed is a total re-design of the engagement strategy of the government at every level, from the budget presentation to the employment practices of public servants. Systems re-design is the only way to become effective.

Here’s a CNBC comment that could put some reality to the dinosaur-like thinking that is passing for communications and leadership.

“At 2.01 billion, Facebook has more monthly active users than WhatsApp (500 million), Twitter (284 million) and Instagram (200 million)—combined. (Source: CNBC)”.

Minister Imbert doesn’t seem to care for the love nor the likes so it’s licks for the population.

September 25, 2017September 25, 2017 ~ dennisedemming ~ 1 Comment

Our new “Oil” is “Tourism” and this Keith Rowley-led Government better understand that, if they want to provide any kind of hope to this country. There are 3 areas for urgent action: destination marketing, increasing international arrivals and having a well-trained and certified labour supply.

The 2017 budgetary allocation by the Government towards the marketing and promotion of Trinidad & Tobago’s Tourism products was TT$19M (nineteen million TT dollars). When compared to allocations in 2015 of TT$50M (fifty million TT dollars), this represents a significant fall by 62%. Two months ago, in July, the Ministry of Tourism confirmed that only TT$8M of the $19M was actually spent. Spending TT$8M to market a diverse destination such as T&T is a waste of money. You’ve got to either do it properly or not at all. In addition to this lack of spend, the contracts for all of our overseas marketing representatives (except for the UK) were cancelled in October 2016 by the Ministry of Tourism with no replacement providers appointed. Thus, Destination Trinidad & Tobago has NOT been promoted in most of our main tourist source markets for the past year.

Consistent with this lack of spend is the fall in international arrivals. The data says that over the first eight months of 2015 (i.e. by August), we welcomed 300,000 overseas visitors. For a similar period in 2017, overseas visitors has fallen to 275,000, representing an 8% reduction. This has had a direct negative impact on both hotel occupancy as well as room taxation remitted to the Government.

If you combine the reduced budgetary allocation, the lack of destination marketing spend as well as the Government’s continued and prejudicial withholding of GATE reimbursements and recurrent subvention payments to the Trinidad and Tobago Hospitality and Tourism Institute (TTHTI), what emerges is a Tourism Sector which is on the brink of collapse.

To avoid this collapse, the 2018 budget cater for the following:

Ramp up the destination marketing allocation to the Tourism sector to at least the TT$60M which is remitted annually by hoteliers to the Government as proceeds from the room tax collected every time someone sleeps in a hotel.

Sufficient allocations must also be provided to the Ministry of Education honour its GATE reimbursement commitments to a number of tertiary level institutions in Trinidad & Tobago.

The budget presentation is really an exercise in accountability. What is needed at stages 2 & 3 are wide collaboration on the plan for the sector and transparency with regard to how the plans will be executed.

Let’s do This … Minister of Finance!