By COREY CONNELLY Saturday, September 26 2009

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Independent Senator Michael Annisette....

Independent Senator Michael Annisette yesterday urged the Government to rethink its position on the controversial new property tax regime.

And he strenuously suggested the measure be hammered out either through a Joint Select Committee of the Parliament or widespread public consultation.

“I am making an appeal to the Government to withdraw that (property tax regime), think it through, set up a Joint Select Committee. At the end of the day involve those who would be affected by the decision in the process so that they would not be left out. That is fundamental for any government who is in power,” Annisette said while contributing to the Budget debate in the Upper House.

Annisette was responding to a report yesterday which quoted Finance Minister Karen Nunez- Tesheira as saying the Government would not back down on its agenda.

She had also insisted the measure was necessary to ensure greater equity and transparency.

“I am hoping honestly that that statement was misquoted and the Honourable Minister would correct that,” Annisette declared.

“I am hoping and praying to God that that was a mistake because if in the light of all the complaints that you are hearing from people from different walks of life in this society as it relates to the property tax, if you are insensitive and if you disregard those concerns, you do not have an idea of what leadership is. You do not have an idea of what it means to carry a country to another level. Because if you disassociate yourself and your connection is not with the people, well then how could we, therefore, pass laws to govern the country.”

Annisette, president general of the Seamen and Waterfront Workers’ Trade Union (SWWTU), made it clear that the trade union movement did not support the property tax regime in its existing form.

“We believe strongly that given what is happening worldwide, and Trinidad and Tobago is not isolated from what is happening worldwide, given the contracting economies and given our realities to come and put a property tax in the context in which the Government has placed it in this Honourable House is to show disrespect to each and every citizen of Trinidad and Tobago and I am saying that we need to think out what we are doing,” he said.

Referring to the tax regime, Annisette asked: “How do you justify that someone who has retired, someone who has paid to build a house and has lived in that house, he didn’t put it in the bank or anything, how do you justify that person having to pay tax? What mechanism are you going to use to determine the value of the house?”

He wondered if technocrats in the Ministry of Finance would determine the value of the house coming up with the idea that this is the value of the house.

“Come on, come on...We are in the 21st century and if we are talking about participatory democracy, that cannot be and must not be the approach to an issue that fundamentally affects almost every citizen in Trinidad and Tobago,” said Annisette.