One for Paddy

NATIONAL SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY LEVY, aka ‘New Tax’, is the main feature of the budgetary statement of Tuesday, August 16, laid by Minister of Finance Mr Christopher Sinckler in the Parliament of Barbados.

National? Yes, it will have an effect on every man, woman and child in the country. Social? Well, it speaks to an economy more than a society as it further disrupts the latter. Responsibility? Wait a minute, who has been responsible for instituting tax after tax, all of which have failed to meet the projection? Not us, but “Dem”.

I wonder if the tax is also meant to reinforce the fact that the Customs Department is a revenue collecting arm of Government and therefore rightly belongs within the ambit of the Barbados Revenue Authority?

As far as the actual collection of the monies goes, one imagines that a new computer programme has been written or the old one upgraded in all the servers of all the agencies that have to receive and apportion the funds so as to guarantee that, as the Prime Minister indicated, the new funds shall be for the stated purpose.

In order to ensure separation of “the take”, I can well see that there will be two pop-up boxes on the computer screen defined by the old Bajan saying, “One for Paddy and two for Knight”. In other words, the big slice will be for Chris and the two per cent, metaphorically speaking, for the Prime Minister.

One thing is for certain that we shall all feel, in our pockets, the effects of “what Paddy gives the drum”, a good beating.

– MICHAEL RUDDER