By SEAN DOUGLAS Thursday, September 24 2009

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SIGNING OFF: Local Government Minister Hazel Manning (left)signs some documents during yesterday's budget debate in the Senate. To her left National S...

LOCAL Government Minister Hazel Manning told the Senate on Tuesday that the new Trinidad and Tobago Revenue Authority (TTRA) would collect the new property taxes.

Justifying the initiative on the basis of a MORI poll, which reportedly showed that 67 percent of people wanted rates and taxes to be collected by Central Government, she said, “This will occur under the TTRA”. She said the move would allow for the standardisation of rates, which she lamented ranged from ten percent in Chaguanas to two percent in Point Fortin.

Regarding cuts in the budgetary allocations to local government corporations, Manning gave figures to show that Opposition-controlled regions were not treated differently from Government-controlled corporations.

She added that corporations in Siparia and Penal had each been cut by about 19 percent, while Port-of-Spain, San Fernando and Laventille/San Juan faced cuts of 31 percent, 26 percent and 28 percent, respectively.

In her contribution, Independent Senator Helen Drayton said that while she supported some rise in the property tax, any hike from $100 to $5,000 per year was unreasonable and unfair.

“To pay for the inefficiency and mismanagement of the past four decades is unfair”.

She urged the Government to check its spending priorities, saying an expanded Family Court was more important than a Carnival museum, and that a Children’s Authority was needed, more so as, to allow the authorities to focus on two children’s homes where children are at risk.

She lamented that after all the money spent tidying up Port-of-Spain for the Fifth Summit of the America, the capital city has since returned to its pre-Summit state of “being a big urinal”.

Drayton said although the Rapid Rail project was now on ice, there were already huge expenditures of $105 million, $100 million and $30 million over the past three years on the proposal.

She also said the gas price of US$2.75 per MMBTU, upon which the National Budget is pegged, was too high since prices were likely to remain depressed.

Drayton also said car-safety measures should not be imposed in the Budget.

“The next time will we see fees for smoking marijuana be put into the Budget? It should not be seen as a revenue-generating device. The Budget should be amended to remove that,” she advised.